


Free Sky

by shahanshah



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Military
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 121,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shahanshah/pseuds/shahanshah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the cold darkness of interstellar space, beyond every known frontier of mankind, against the most terrible of enemies, the Goddess protects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chosen

"The will of the Goddess manifests itself in many ways: in the fire and lightning of our army, in the protection she gives to deliver us from darkness, but in no way more strongly than in the hope that she plants in the hearts of mankind." – First Prophet of the Goddess.

-x-

Genesis, Diana decided, scored a very solid six on her "middle-of-nowhere" scale. While it lacked the more nuanced indicators of unimportance that the poorer colonies possessed—vaguely colored tap water, faulty interplanetary communications lines, and the ever-present whir of ongoing terraforming projects—it did very well in the "general air of hopelessness" field, and Diana could hardly ignore the fact that the vast majority of the populace was seemingly comprised of Hierocracy officials, off-duty military personnel, or drunkards.

Well, that wasn't fair. Diana knew that she had only labeled the suspicious teenager sprawled opposite her in the shuttle terminal a "broke drunkard" because it was a conveniently simple explanation. Really, if she looked closer, despite the unidentifiable stains on the boy's shirt and the uncombed mess of his hair, "drunkard" didn't add up. He wasn't really _acting_ drunk, his clothing was in the unmistakable red-and-white fashion typical of somebody with a daddy in the Hierocracy, and he looked too well-fed to pass for a colonist.

The kid shifted as Diana passed her gaze over him a second time. Like a daddy-long-legs curling up, he drew his lanky arms and legs a bit closer into himself each time he moved. It was moderately amusing, and Diana had to suppress a chuckle.

Yawning, Diana craned her neck around, making a show out of examining the mostly-empty terminal. The only thing keeping her here was her late shuttle. "So, why were you hiding from those Hierocracy guys? Did you kill a man or something?"

The teenager looked up. He seemed older than Diana, too old for her high school, and now that Diana had a closer look at his features, he was _definitely_ Japanese, which only made it more likely that he was some rich boy with Hierocracy connections. Clearly he had gotten himself into _some_ shenanigans, and now he was stranded in _some_ backwater colony for _some_ stupid reason.

Yeah, that made sense.

The teenager rubbed his glasses with the cuff of his dirty robes. "Yes, I am hiding from the Hierocracy at the moment, though I doubt that the men and women who came earlier were specifically looking for me. And I also doubt that you are actually looking for an answer as to _why_ I'm hiding."

Diana shrugged. "Well, no. It just seemed good etiquette to ask. I wanted to properly acknowledge the blatant mysteriousness of the situation. It only, uh, seemed proper to, you know…"

Diana trailed off, waving her hands vaguely in the air. "Yeah. Anyways."

The teenager sighed. "So why are you here?"

"School. Real stimulating stuff, let me assure you."

"You have classmates?"

"Art club only."

"And the other members of the art club?"

"The art club is too cool for there to be any other members besides me."

The teenager nodded. "Oh."

"If we're going to be playing the questions game," Diana said, "it's only fair that I at least get to make guesses, right? You're here because, uh, you're a radical, even though you're probably from a core sector, given that you're Japanese, which means that you're one of those weird core radicals who doesn't really have anything to complain about. A pacifist, maybe?"

"I wouldn't joke about that," the teenager said, limbs once again moving a bit closer to his body. There was an almost audible ping as Diana's words bounced off of the teenager's armor.

Diana shrugged. "Well, I mean, you never know. We're pretty far from Earth right now. Himmelsschloss authority sure isn't as potent out here. Admittedly, though, I sure as fuck don't really know much about what I'm saying right now. You _aren't_ some sort of heretic, right?"

"I could teach you canonized litanies to recite at noon so obscure that you've never heard of them in your entire life."

"Hierocracy kid. Right. Gotcha," Diana said. "Well, sorry. It was hard not to notice. The last place I was at was closer politically to the Hierocracy, which was probably where the funding for the neo-realist exhibitions came from. But, hey, you go here, and the only reason anybody who's not a native looks like a Hierocrat or a soldier is because the only goddamn purpose this place has is as a travel stopover. I wouldn't be surprised if you could whisper a couple heretical thoughts around here and not get thrown into a cell."

The teenager snorted, moving his limbs away from his body for the first time as he crossed his arms. "Would you?"

"Probably not. I'm too disinterested, now that I think about it."

"That's what I thought," the teenager said. "Don't try to be too witty or clever. It doesn't work as well when you, by your own admission, don't really know what you're talking about. _You_ might think that some backwater colony has limited Hierocratic influence. But it's impossible to truly separate yourself from the Hierocracy unless you actually board something extremely illegal and make your way to a Separatist world. Which, of course, you haven't."

Diana stuck out a tongue. "You never know, Mr. Know-it-all."

The teenager, disinterested in replying, slumped a little bit deeper into his chair and stopped speaking. Behind the thin metal rims of the teenager's glasses, Diana could see his gaze gradually slide back and forth between the terminal's doors. Occasionally he would glance back at Diana and then look away just as quickly, in quick succession identifying the looming silence between them, feeling the urge to fill it, and then failing to come up with any meaningful discussion. Diana shrugged and yawned. She didn't care enough about the kid to continue interacting with him any further. He was just another person, one of several dozen billion that lived their lives in the galaxy, and all Diana felt obliged to do with them was make the sophomoric remarks.

There was a rustle of motion as the teenager turned around in his chair to check the time. Diana's own shuttle back to Mars was scheduled to arrive nearly half an hour ago. At first, Diana had shrugged and continued to laze about, but such a delay was definitely abnormal enough to shake her out of her snug shell of apathy.

Reaching into her backpack, Diana retrieved her computer. Her eyes rested on the insignia printed on the side of the computer: a hammer, with a long, flowing tassel attached to the end, encircling a gilded gemstone. Modern computers were engineered and manufactured by the Hearth. Even the rarest AI could trace its origins to the military's need to calculate firing solutions between two ships light-seconds apart both moving at fractions of c. All holographic 3D displays had originally been used on starship bridges by commanders who needed to account for the third dimension. It was one of the pieces of trivia that she had absorbed: something sufficiently obscure and scientifically relevant to be considered "witty." Acting smart didn't really work without _being_ smart.

Brow furrowed, Diana began to investigate the source of the delay. Ordinarily, the Hierocracy bulletin in front of her would have informed her of the inconvenience, but no such notice appeared. Nothing on the local news channels seemed to indicate anything unusual about the Genesis travel network, either.

"Weird," she muttered. "What the hell's going on?"

With a cheerful chime, the bulletin board in front of her flickered on. Words began crawling across the screen while simultaneously being played on the PA system: "A planet-wide shutdown in transportation is underway. It is unknown when transportation will recommence. Please await further instructions. Remain calm and hold the faith."

Diana blinked. "Well, this isn't suspicious at all."

The teenager's body stiffened as the message ended. "Something's wrong."

"No, I'm sure there isn't a problem at all. What are you talking about?"

Abruptly, the teenager stood. "Excuse me for a moment." As he left his chair, he slipped a communications device around his ear. After moving some distance away from Diana, not that it really mattered, a small red light on the communications device blinked on. Diana could see his eyes slip out of focus. She had never seen anybody manage to pay much attention to their surroundings while engrossed in the voices bouncing around inside their head. A few magical girls, maybe, but everybody else was very single-minded.

Diana didn't feel any shame as she stared at the teenager. She had an excuse: she was bored, and something evidently interesting was taking place. Her life wasn't idyllic enough for her to savor it and guard it jealously from any possible disturbance: if she wallowed in self-doubt enough, she could realize that she didn't have that many friends, that she lacked drive, that she was all too complacent with her flaws. But it certainly wasn't _boring_ enough for her to long for release from an imaginary prison. What fulfillment might she seek when the hole in her life was small enough that nobody well-adjusted was ever bothered by it?

The suffering of the world, she thought, was too far away to make an impact. She placed suffering on her lips during her daily prayers, and she had hope and its promised relief placed into her ears and eyes in Hierocracy-issued pamphlets and textbooks and broadcasts. It was just an idea that she knew had practical applications, like the Goddess, or hope, or salvation, but none of it would ever apply to her, no matter what she was told. She was too cynical to believe them and too opportunistic to not take the more outlandish of the Hierocracy's words and mock them. She knew that ultimately, she made herself too cynical to take suffering—that catch-all rallying cry, that driving purpose—seriously.

It had moved Prophets and soldiers and a Goddess, but she didn't believe that it would ever move her.

The teenager was agitated. Diana could see his lips uncurl for a second, baring the teeth underneath, and she could see his temples shift as his molars grinded. As Diana continued staring—and now she couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit ashamed ( _I'm such a stalker this is seriously creepy)_ —something else slid itself under the anger. It made the teenager's actions and gestures more wild, his posture looser, and his hands more jittery. It was panic, which was gradually precipitating into fear.

The communications device blinked off. "Hey," Diana said, rising out of her seat, "let's, uh, skip the part where you tell me that something's wrong, or the part where I have to ask you if something's wrong, and go right to the one where you tell me what's wrong."

"Will you believe my words?"

"Identify yourself first. This could all be one very elaborate prank, and I don't want to play the sucker's role."

Reaching into robes, the teenager withdrew a small, unassuming ring, not adorned with any jewelry or visible engravings. "What do you think the odds are that I have stolen this ring?"

Diana's eyes widened. "Extremely low. So you actually _are_ some high-ranking Hierocracy official?"

"I am related."

"Well if you're just some Hierocracy official's _kid_ , then that doesn't make me trust you all that much. Tell me your name."

"If I am devout enough to carry this ring, then I have no reason to hurt you. At the very worst, this will end up being an embarrassing waste of time for you."

Diana shrugged. "Is it really too much to ask for your name?"

The teenager's eyes jumped upwards to the ceiling. For a moment, he was silent. Then, he moved his eyes back to Diana and spoke. "You are different in some ways, granted, but you still maintain the same religion as the rest of humanity. I cannot tell you my name. I will be having no martyrs on this day."

"Oh, that's nice," Diana said, staring back with a flat gloss in her eyes. "I mean, it's not like everything would be easier if you just told me who you were. Sorry, but when you combine that sort of excuse with your looks and your sealed lips, it only makes people more curious."

"I'll tell you my full name later. For now, call me Yoshio. You need to trust me, believe me, and do exactly as I say. Do you understand?"

Yoshio's voice, never wavering once, was flat and level. He was trying too hard to cover up. Diana knew that his red-and-white robes didn't denote a member of the military. This was a boy, dressed in the clothes of a bigger man, who, by the random number generator of fate, had happened upon the right information or circumstances. Somehow, something was spiraling out of control, and there was nothing this boy could do but talk to her about it.

It was hard to feel detached now. It was hard to be cynical. Diana was fairly certain that the appropriate response was fear.

"I understand."

"Soon, the military will call for an evacuation of the entire planet. Magical girls will be deployed to aid in the evacuation. People will panic, and not all of them will make it out. I am guaranteed to make it to a safe location, so you will be coming with me."

Diana swallowed. "Why is Genesis being evacuated?"

"An attack is coming."

"Even a planet like this has a defense fleet. If the rebels are stupid enough to launch an all-out assault on a planet owned by the Hierocracy, we should still be able to chase them off."

"The attackers are not rebels. They contradict all expectations and prior human knowledge. That is why I cannot tell you anything: because what I can tell you is only conjecture, and neither of us needs that right now."

Diana nodded slowly. She was in a classroom, and her mind was being stuffed with information that displaced what had previously occupied that space. Fifteen minutes ago, life was predictable. Now, she was being given instructions like the planet was about to abruptly stop turning. At least, fifteen minutes ago, life had _seemed_ predictable. Diana, after some thinking, came to the conclusion that order had been thrown into chaos some time ago, and only now the actual effects of whatever great cataclysm had shaken the foundations of life could be felt.

"I am going to meet with the military at a rendezvous point. They don't know you're here, with me, but they will let you evacuate with me."

Diana threw up her hands. "Woah, wait, okay, I've been following along pretty well so far, and I've been doing the whole 'trust you' thing, but why is the military going to let some random teenage girl get on with them?"

"They will listen to me."

"Are we going to have to waste time arguing with the military—"

"They _will_ listen to me."

Diana was silent as she followed Yoshio out of the shuttle port. About her in the streets, people hurried along and leaned against the sides of buildings. Vehicles moved up and down and left to right along airways and roads. The towers were shorter and not as shiny as the ones on Earth, but they still displayed red and white roses on the flags unfurled on the rooftops. Diana could delude herself into believing that they were on Earth, light-years away from insurrectionists, nestled between row after row of world-fortresses capable of deploying an endless legion of glowing starships at a moment's notice.

As much as she liked to be apathetic or put on apathy's veneer when disinterest fashionably suited the topic at hand, Diana still had her trivia. And as much as she liked to pretend that what she read didn't _scare_ her, once she managed to see the words not as projected casualty numbers but as actual corpses, she _was_ scared. She knew how well-protected Earth was, so she knew how much she and her companion were _not_ protected at the moment.

Everything was loud. The air was stuffed with noise, even in a backwater like this, with turbines and personal transports and miasma containment centers, and Diana tried to wade through the useless filler to hear something that might indicate an incongruity or a disturbance. There was nothing.

Yoshio had somehow managed to commandeer a transport for the two of them. There was another symbol printed on the side: the same gilded soul gem nestled in the hilt of a two-edged sword. Diana was vaguely familiar with the specific details of the intertwined origins of the Hearth and the Armada, enough to know why the two military organizations had similar insignias.

"Get in," Yoshio said, opening a door. "I'll drive."

"Where'd you learn how?"

"That is really not an issue of any concern."

The vehicle jolted forwards and upwards, driving Diana back into her seat. "This is your first time doing this, isn't it? You're like some awkward high school virgin, except when you fuck up we both _die_."

"That's a bit overdramatic, isn't it?"

"Look," Diana said, putting a hand against the vehicle's door to steady herself, "don't pull this bullshit with me, okay? You've spent the last half hour telling me that I have to trust you, that something is about to attack this colony—I have the _right_ to be stressed out and worried, okay? Can we agree on that? For _fuck's_ sake."

Diana turned her head away from Yoshio. "Sorry."

"Both of us are going to be fine."

"How can you _say_ that so easily? Yeah, we're going to be fine, just ignore the fact that I'm traveling with some stranger, while apparently the world is falling apart around us, even though everyone is walking the fuck along like everything's all right. Aren't these people—"

Around them, gigantic display screens plastered across the building walls flashed to life. It was the evacuation order, just as Yoshio had predicted. The people in the streets below reacted with confusion, but order rapidly took precedence. Evacuation orders were very specific. The people had instructions to follow.

The brief thought that the people looked like ants from up high flitted through Diana's mind. Then, she felt disgusted with herself. They were _people_ , human beings, who were most likely disoriented and _scared_ for their lives. And they could _think_ , too, which made the fear all the more real, didn't it? If people could think, then they could know, with very real certainty, that death was the end.

Diana felt her palms itch. Her fingers felt too rigid, and her joints too frozen, for her to move to scratch.

"We," Yoshio said, repeating himself, "are going to be fine. You believe me, right? 'The Prophet turned to the lost and the broken, preyed upon by despair, and said, 'Fear not, for I bear message from on high that salvation is near. Doubt not, for doubt yields to weakness and surrender. Believe, for the words placed on my lips by the Goddess tell you that good shall prevail.'"

"Scripture?" Diana asked.

"Yes."

 _We are going to be fine,_ Diana repeated to herself.

The transport sped past a church. Diana craned her neck to look at the edifice of white marble and stained glass. Towering behind the main church, twin containment chambers rumbled as wall after wall of prayer-enhanced, miasma-suppressing bunker slid into place as per evacuation protocol.

"Have you ever seen one?" she asked.

Yoshio's nose scrunched up. "Yes."

"Why aren't your eyes hollow, black husks, and why isn't your mind a tortured hellscape of pain and trauma?"

Diana didn't inflect at all as she delivered her lines, and only returned the flat, unamused stare that Yoshio gave her.

"You doubt what the Hierocracy has to say about demons? They are _very_ ugly," Yoshio said.

"A demon doesn't look ugly in a picture."

"You're not stupid. You know why it doesn't look ugly. You're just leading me along."

Diana sank a bit into her seat. "Yeah."

There was nothing but the hum of the transport's engines for a while.

"You need propaganda to scare people," Yoshio said, "because they need to be scared. A demon does _not_ look scary or ugly in a picture. It does not look evil. Behind a pane of reinforced glass, though, a demon is very real. A facsimile cannot replicate, nor can words convey, how a demon is ugly. It is worse for the magical girls."

"It is?"

"Yes. Another purpose that propaganda serves is to dispel rumors and lies while disseminating the truth. Much of what you know about demons is either a distorted truth or an unashamed lie. Magical girls could always see demons better than humans. Even after the war with them—"

Diana coughed.

"Even though you're nominally religious," Yoshio said, shaking his head, "you're still a skeptic."

"No, I'm perfectly willing to believe every claim regardless of substantiation that the Hierocracy makes."

"There is evidence. Even if every human alive during that period is now dead, the Incubators confirm that the demons were in hiding before the revelation of the Goddess."

"I wouldn't be able to tell if an Incubator was sitting on my lap right now. How is that supposed to be valid evidence for me? Is 'have faith' supposed to be the answer to every question?"

Yoshio remained silent. "No, it's not."

The theological debate provided a momentary distraction for Diana. When speaking or arguing, she could let the words take precedence over the mind. Theological debate, in her experience, never presented any questions that would require her to use the mind as opposed to the mouth.

Klaxons sounding throughout the city shocked Diana out of her unthinking haze. Evacuation centers were locking down. The skies remained calm and unperturbed.

Diana tried retreating into her mind, but found no comfort there.

Yoshio took his eyes off the transport's controls to examine Diana. "There is," he said, "yet another benefit to Hierocracy propaganda. 'Have faith' is not the answer. It has never has been. The faith practiced by fools who draw blinds about their eyes to hide their impotency—the blind faith—cannot be an answer. But faith, whether or not it is blind, keeps people comfortable."

Frowning slightly, Diana narrowed her eyes at Yoshio. "I don't want to be comfortable," she said, her words sharpened around the edges. "I want to be fucking _informed._ "

"Yes," Yoshio said. "That is what most people say."

Diana turned her head to examine the outside scenery. "When are we going to get to your rendezvous point?"

"In about ten minutes. The base isn't located near a major population center."

"We go off-world, right?"

"As soon as possible, yes."

"So what happens to all the people we leave behind?"

Yoshio looked away from Diana. He drew into himself, like he was the recluse from the shuttle terminal again. "There are ships going off-world attached to the evacuation centers."

"And the people who stay on-world?" A perverse sense of curiosity drove Diana forward, prompting her to ask question after question. "What about them?"

"Please," Yoshio said, his eyes a film of regret, "don't make me say what you already know."

The black shadow of death hovered over Diana for the rest of the trip to the rendezvous point. She tried to ignore it, and she tried to mock herself for it. Neither worked. All the wit in the world was useless to suppress the fear of death. In a moment of desperation, Diana reached for faith—offered up some prayer to a Goddess that might not even have been listening—and found nothing.

-x-

Military personnel swarmed around the transport as it landed. One of them gave Yoshio a questioning look as Diana followed the teenager out of the door.

"My Lord?"

Yoshio fixed the man with a hard look. "She's with me."

"As you wish."

Yoshio turned to Diana. "See?" he whispered. "No hassle."

"Who the hell _are_ you?" Diana asked. "' _My Lord?'_ If he's addressing you like that, what the hell are you doing on some Goddess-forsaken colony world?"

His mouth slightly open in surprise, Yoshio looked away from Diana. His posture, previously straight and erect, slumped low. "It is a complicated story."

The soldiers gathered around the pair abruptly stopped speaking amongst themselves. Diana looked around to find whatever had attracted the soldiers' attention.

Someone had entered the hangar. Her shoulders were pulled back, her lips were drawn in a thin, solid line, and her steps clacked against the stone floor.

Her face seemed to have been taken from a forge and then plastered onto a human being. Short-cropped blonde hair framed her face. All the men in the room were taller than her, though Diana noted that she herself was still shorter. The girl would have looked ridiculous in the uniform worn by grown men, so she wore a military tunic of purple.

The uniform of the men was a dark, striking navy blue, with collars and caps to confer significance and professionalism and formality. Most of all, it spoke of _strength._ The men of the military wanted the world to know that their profession was operating the arks of war.

The uniform of the girls was a softer purple, without medals, and without much decoration. On a practical level, it would've been absurd to transform from one decorative outfit to another, so the uniform was kept simple. It didn't convey grit; instead it conveyed wonder and awe. These were not the dirty soldiers.

The magical girls—the _mahou shoujo—_ were pure and clean, for they, said the men at the pulpits, were the Will of a benevolent goddess, and they, along with the words of the Prophets, would lead the human race out of despair.

Their gazes glancing downwards in deference, the soldiers murmured their respects as the girl approached Diana and Yoshio. Diana guessed that she and the magical girl were about the same age. As the magical girl drew closer, Diana shifted a bit in discomfort—it was hard not to feel inadequate. She wasn't enough of a special snowflake (doomed to bear the burden of despair, and in that burden, elevated to greatness) to warrant an Incubator seeking her out and recruiting her. Volunteering to join the _mahou shoujo_ was, well—

Yoshio had said it earlier. He wasn't having any martyrs. Neither was Diana.

As the girl drew nearer, Yoshio himself didn't bow his head. Instead, he stepped forwards and, after a moment of halting hesitation, extended a hand.

The magical girl smoothly took it in her own, smaller hand. "Christine McDonnell," she said. Diana watched as Yoshio's eyes were drawn to the ring on Christine's hand, before he quickly glanced back up at the girl's face.

"I've been tasked with bringing you home," she said. "Forgive me if I behave strangely, because this entire situation is very strange to me. If you, my Lord, were in any branch of the military, I'd be brining you home in chains. Instead, I'm doing it on a flying carpet."

Yoshio bristled for a second, before the fight crawled out of him and he returned to his previously hunched posture.

"And you're bringing along a stray."

"I'm not a stray," Diana said, her voice a note too shrill. A second passed, and then she took a step back. "Ma'am."

Christine shrugged. "You coming along has absolutely no practical impact on the operation, so as long as you stay out of the way, I couldn't care less whether or not she boards. That being said, it'd be in your best interests to follow us."

A second passed in silence before Diana nodded. "All right."

"Very well," Christine said. She turned to Yoshio and glanced up and down the teenager's lanky, skinny frame. "This way, my Lord."

A twinge of discomfort shot through Diana. She didn't vocalize her complaints, but given that she was being associated with Yoshio, she would prefer that he actually displayed a spine. Christine wasn't mocking him—Diana was certain that whatever position Yoshio held in the Hierocracy would make that some form of heresy—but the undercurrent in the words was there, woven in by a girl disdainful of two people wasting her time.

The two of them were led deeper into the military installation that they had landed at. They moved through a swarm of activity, as technicians and gunners dressed in their work uniforms hurried along with places to go, and the occasional girl dressed in the purple tunic paused momentarily to acknowledge Christine. The facility was austere, aesthetically clean, and visually powerful, with towering bunkers and hangars visible outside the windows. Diana noted all of this as she let her eyes wander the halls. She was moderately familiar with the architecture that the military endorsed—its history, how it had been developed by those select magical girls, whose influence grew within the military, with artistic inclinations…

That was art: a statement, an interpretation of reality. It was something to analyze. It required thought.

Diana didn't share her interests with anyone, though. That would be pretentious.

Behind her, Yoshio looked uneasy. Diana nudged him with her elbow. His face pale, Yoshio looked up.

The military personnel surrounding them emanated a vaguely intrusive air, so she only raised an eyebrow to communicate her concern. Yoshio seemed to only look sicker.

"What is it?" Christine asked, noticing Yoshio. Her steps picked up in frequency. "Is there a problem?"

"A hunch. The implications of the hunch are unknown to me, though."

Diana couldn't help herself. "Yoshio, are you really going to be uselessly vague to the military as well?"

"I am not being uselessly vague. I am just letting you know that, somewhere, right now, through nonspecific means, the situation we are in has become measurably worse. I do not know where, or why, or how."

Christine's jaw tensed. "Duly noted."

"We are heading towards an orbit-capable transport, correct?" Yoshio asked.

" _Yes_."

"And have you notified the civilian population that there is an attack?"

Christine sighed. "I'm not going to rehash an argument that people more clever than us have had dozens of times in the past. You know that we haven't. Are you uncomfortable with it?"

 _Blind faith_ , Diana thought, _that the Hierocracy and the military will keep the civilians safe_.

Fear gripped her limbs, and she stumbled forwards as her feet tripped over themselves. Biting her tongue, Diana stared straight ahead, ignoring Yoshio's querying look.

_We are going to be fine._

Word placed on lips—what did any of it _mean_? If the promise of salvation had no practical backing, then what use did conviction have? How did the words stand without action?

Finally, Yoshio answered. "We should be doing more for them," he said. "We are the ones who promised to save them. That being said, yes, I am uncomfortable, but I will not stop you."

Christine blinked in surprise. "Well, yes. We should…"

The rest of her speech trailed off unintelligibly. Christine's eyes searched Yoshio.

Yoshio didn't flinch under her eyes, until one of the soldiers cleared his throat as they stepped through doors leading outside of the facility and declared, "We're here." The words seemed to shock Yoshio out of whatever trance he had fallen into, and a second later he averted his gaze to the floor.

"Huh," Christine muttered once Yoshio had looked away, scratching the back of her head.

-x-

Half an hour later, Diana and Yoshio had been escorted to one of the living quarters aboard the ship. The room occupied that comfortable zone between overstuffed and barren, with a couple religious icons and texts decorating the walls and shelves.

Christine busied herself by keeping watch outside. Occasionally, Diana would peek outside and see the communications device strapped to the magical girl's ear glowing red.

Across from her, Yoshio sat, rigid and frozen, against a hard-backed chair. His fists were clenched tight, and his face seemed paler than ever.

"Is there something wrong, my Lord?"

Diana turned around to see Christine standing at the doorway, arms crossed.

Yoshio rubbed his face in his hands. "I do not know. I feel terrible, though."

"No kidding," Diana said. "Seriously, what's gotten into you? Ever since the shuttle port…"

"I will be fine," Yoshio said, shaking his head. "It's—"

Yoshio's eyes widened as he gasped in pain, suddenly grasping at his head. A moment later, the door slid open and an Incubator walked in.

Diana's eyes flitted between Yoshio, still clearly pained, and the Incubator, which slowly, deliberately lowered its haunches onto the floor of the spaceship.

Silence reigned inside the room for almost a minute. Diana was too confused to open her mouth to say anything. The only motion was the Incubator's too-fluffy-to-be-biologically-plausible tail. Diana occasionally brought herself to stare at the thing, but she found herself looking away as soon as she made "contact" with the glossy painted marbles that were supposed to pass for eyes.

_-and this one will be important._

Diana started up in alarm. "What?"

The voice that spoke in her mind was some squeaky, saccharine affair, like someone had dipped an automated AI voice inside a vat filled with rainbows and suffocated pet squirrels. Diana's eyes instantly flitted to the Incubator.

"I...you were speaking telepathically?"

Immediately after the words came out of her mouth, Diana felt like an idiot.

 _Yes_ , the Incubator said. It turned to Christine. _Would you like to inform our friend?_

Christine scowled. _Why'd you include her, Incubator?_ _What game are you playing?_

 _I am not playing any games_ , the Incubator said. _Games are an inefficient allocation of resources. I told you that she would be important._

_That's not—_

_Incubator_. Diana instinctively looked at Yoshio in response to the sound of his voice inside her head. _I have identified the source of the data discrepancy._

The metronome that was the Incubator's tail, swaying from side to side, abruptly paused. _Have you? When the Incubators could not?_

_There are many things the Incubators can neither do nor know._

Christine's scowl deepened. _If you two are done having your pissing match—_

 _The demons' mutations include starship capabilities comparable to Hierocracy fleets,_ Yoshio said. _How far away is the nearest battleship ten kilometers long or larger?_

 _It's out of the system. The last report said that it was two hours away,_ Christine said, her scowl gradually giving way to a look of befuddlement. _Why…_

_I want you to send orders to whoever's necessary to tell it to hurry up. Meanwhile, we evacuate this ship._

The Incubator hopped onto a table. _Ah. We have identified the discrepancy in the demon's behavior. This is indeed an unprecedented development._

Christine walked over to confront the Incubator directly. _Just what is going on?_

_Several points within the miasma headed towards Genesis could not be observed by the Incubators. The fact that miasma existed within interstellar space at all, light-years away from the nearest source of human emotion, was interesting enough, but this was a truly puzzling point. As it turns out, those points, which Yoshio detected, were all warships._

The Incubator licked its paw.

_The demon attack force is of such size that it will easily obliterate every single ship in orbit around Genesis within one hour. Yoshio knows this. Only the inbound battleship will be able to combat them._

Two invisible hands took hold of Diana's lips and clamped them together. An incoherent buzz of white noise drowned out all sensible thought. The very _real_ idea of her imminent death came to the forefront of her mind.

"Demons?" she asked, the words forcing themselves out of her mouth. "That's impossible. All the miasma on this planet is contained, isn't it?"

_They come from deep space. It is quite the anomaly. This sort of behavior violates previously-held beliefs regarding miasma formation and demon behavior. The enemy has changed on a fundamental level. It has always been said that there are no rules regarding demons but this one: that they want to bring you all to despair and will do anything to achieve those goals. They are an enemy exactly as foolishly persistent as those who birthed them. After out-smarting the demons for centuries, it appears that they have now gained the upper hand once more. Prevailing Incubator theories concern discrete siphoning of human emotion from poorly-policed rebel colonies, something that would take, over the course of possibly centuries, the concerted efforts of several—_

_Shut up,_ Yoshio said. He stood and began to pace back and forth. After a second, he pointed at Christine, who started in surprise. _How large is the battle group currently defending this system?_

Christine took a moment to recover from her shock before replying, _Four cruisers, seven destroyers. Additional specifications are available on the intranet, but your communications device won't be granted clearance. We'll have to swap it out if you want access to the files._ _I'll send a request to the on-ship Hearth representative._

_Given my estimates on the size and firepower of these demons—though, admittedly, gauging how dangerous they are from flashes of vision and how sick I feel is a very imprecise practice— we can hold out for longer than one hour._

Christine's eyes flitted downwards, and her face drained of the energy and authority it had once held. _Our best hope of survival is an estimate?_

_When my life is taken from me, I will, in whatever little time I have left, deign to conclude that I am unalterably dead. Until this event happens, and not one moment sooner, I will rightfully assume that I will continue to live beyond whatever hurdles I may face, and I will act accordingly. Your duty is to get me out of this system alive, correct?_

The Incubator tilted its head, but Diana couldn't tell what the gesture signified. Was it amused, or was it questioning? Could the Incubator even be described by either of those adjectives?

 _Yes, my Lord._ Christine answered.

Her face wasn't dark anymore. A pang of envy shot through Diana. The magical girl had certainly not been afraid for very long. The way her jaw was set, and the way her shoulders squared themselves made her hard and sharp, like steel. Yoshio, too. _There's no use,_ Diana privately thought, _in rising to a challenge only to be cut back down._

The next fifteen minutes passed by in a blur of activity. By that time, the news had spread telepathically, from Incubators invested in the continued survival of as many humans as possible, to the _mahou shoujo_ at the top of the chain of command, down through the ranks of the soldiers manning the ship. They readied themselves for war, as firing cells were charged and primed, and engine drivers hummed to life.

Yoshio and Christine had left the room long ago. Only the Incubator remained, silently observing Diana. She toyed with the thought of conversing with the thing. There were dozens upon dozens of topics that she could subtly mock the Incubator on—how it was staring at a little girl, how it took on this arbitrarily cutesy shell, etc.—but she couldn't find it in herself to speak. She felt too cold.

 _Yoshio,_ she thought. _Yoshio…_

Diana didn't know why she was calling out for the teenager.

 _It's no use,_ the Incubator said, jumping off the counter that it had been sitting on and walking towards her. _Only I can connect you with him, and it would be rude to distract Yoshio-chan in the middle of his preparations, wouldn't it?_

Diana blinked at the use of diminutive suffix. _Are you familiar with him?_

_Not personally._

_Why don't you do anything to stop this?_ Diana asked. _Can't you just erase the demons?_

_Sadly, the Incubators do not possess the means to directly interfere with what you experience as the universe. We must act through various media, excepting the creation process for a magical girl, wherein we utilize still-mysterious emotional energy. It is estimated that, in the event that the Incubators were to directly interfere in this conflict, irreparable structural damage would be inflicted upon the third, fourth, and fifth dimensions. As an analogy, imagine two ants locked in battle. Firing a weapon at one of them to stop the fight will kill both._

The Incubator leapt onto Diana's lap. She was too shocked to offer protest. _The demons are coming. Would you like to see?_

Diana's lips twitched. _I'd be absolutely thrilled to witness the vaguely-referenced demons from outer space. Looking upon the face of some eldritch monstrosity would make my day._

_I do not understand the human construct of sarcasm._

Slowly, Diana licked her lips. _Show me._

As long as it was being shown, it wasn't being experienced. If it was on the other side of a screen, or whatever interface the Incubator would use to show the demons to her, then she could pretend that it wasn't happening to her.

 _As you wish,_ the Incubator said.

The room melted away to be replaced by the black backdrop of space, dotted with glowing stars. Far in the distance was a point of light brighter than all the others—the sun of Genesis' system. Diana was a disembodied set of sensory systems, floating in the void. She tried to look at her hands, yet nothing appeared. After the initial disorientation, the sensation was nice. She was detached from the universe, and all she had to do was observe.

Everything was quiet and still. From this far out in the system, Diana knew that it was impossible for her to see Genesis, let alone the ships orbiting it. It was as if this was some sort of meditative chamber for her to calm her nerves in.

_Come and see._

Diana yelped, whirling around to pinpoint the source of the Incubator's voice. _What? What is it?_

As if in response, something moved in the corner of Diana's vision.

One wildly specific memory came to the forefront of Diana's mind. It was a reflex without rational backing, something that popped up uninvited. She had been seven years old, attending Religious Studies at her elementary school. The teacher was an old woman, strict and unforgiving. She didn't remember the face. She only remembered the words.

A demon, the teacher had said, was like every single bad dream you had ever had, rolled up into one horrible thing. The language had been toned down for the children's benefit, yet even so, not many of those within the class had understood. For them, and for her, praying to the Goddess was a matter of routine. It was something that they did, and the consequences were distant and easily dismissed.

As the miasma passed over her, Diana felt her mind be seized by the swirling blackness around her. It was twisted and warped, dissected and examined, before ultimately being tossed aside.

She felt cold, dark, and empty, and most of all, she felt so afraid. Teeming just beyond the feeble protection of her skin, and the even feebler boundary of her ego, was malice and hate and, worst of all, despair.

Her eyes, driven wide with horror, passed over the grotesque figure before her. Diana's own imaginary viewpoint began to shift as well, traversing the huge distances that separated the demons in mere seconds, granting her a view of the entire fleet. Arm after incorporeal arm reached out beneath vast swaths of dull-gray robes, dragging the giants closer to their destination. As the robes fluttered and gaps in the overlapping squares that hid the demons' faces appeared, Diana saw serpentine bodies, and festering wounds, and _teeth_ , and, once, a single glowing yellow eye that twitched and jerked erratically.

 _What_ are _these things? No demons are like this!_

_They have undergone extensive mutation. It is quite interesting._

_But how? Where did they come from?_

Diana looked away from the demons, closing her eyes tight.

_Take me back._

When Diana opened her eyes again, she was back in the room aboard the ship. The Incubator sat before her, perched on its haunches, still staring at her with its wide, open smile.

_The Incubators do not know where these demons have come from. It is certainly a mystery to us._

Klaxons began sounding throughout the ship. Diana looked up to better examine the flashing pattern that now played itself against the wall.

_Why did you show me?_

_Shouldn't that be obvious?_

Diana's jaw clenched. _Answer the question, Incubator._

_I want you to know the stakes. The practice of lying seems to displease humans, so I will not say that you can stop this destruction. You can certainly mitigate it, though._

Beyond the walls of the room, firing teams buzzed with activity as silent telepathic communications filled the minds of the workers. Focusing chambers were adjusted and calibrated, AI targeting supercomputers were constantly fed new data, and directions to repair or replace machinery were sent to semi-automated mechanical systems. Faith and belief had both been all very well and good for the purposes of containing and suppressing demons in the past, but that tactic had evidently failed.

Light flashed down the length of the ship, each laser cannon going off one after the other. Then, darkness and silence reigned. A quarter of a second, one half, as light invisibly raced across the vast emptiness of space. The holy fire of the Goddess' Armada traveled forth until it found its target, and then it cleansed them with fury and destruction.

The demons were torn apart by the explosions, miasma dissipating, detritus from the demons' bodies hurtled into deep space, and still they continued to come. From gaping maw and outstretched hand, beams of light poured out, lines stretching hundreds of thousands of kilometers across before hitting the human ships, slicing them into pieces.

In her room, Diana could do nothing but sit, in silence and blindness, and wait.

 _The other mahou shoujo you've recruited,_ Diana thought, _were they afraid?_

_Indeterminate._

Diana shook her head. _How can you be afraid, when you have all that power at your hands? Can you imagine it? Someone, just shaking in their boots for fear that they won't be able to protect themselves while they can blow up a fucking city block at will._

_Again, I do not understand the human construct of sarcasm._

The ship shook. _Yoshio and Christine,_ she thought. _Are they all right?_

_Yes. Perhaps you would like to pose a more specific question. Humans are notorious for failing to recognize the pertinent queries. Too vague, too often. It is a curious phenomenon._

Will _they be all right if the battle continues the way it is?_

_That is extremely unlikely._

In her pocket, Diana's communication device began buzzing. Puzzled, she placed it on her head. While voices began to speak into her mind, the actual auditory PA system turned on inside the room as well.

"The ship has been boarded. Military personnel will receive further instructions. To all civilians, please remain in place and hold the faith."

"Boarded?" Diana said, forgetting to use telepathy. "By what?"

_Boarding is a battle strategy occasionally used by humans, so it would stand to reason that the demons would be aware of it as well. You use magical girl strike teams. What do you think the demons use? You don't think, just because they're mutated, that the miasma cannot spawn the demons you humans have grown familiar with, do you?_

The Incubator contorted its leg to scratch its back. _Using that human rhetorical device was quite unpleasant. Of course you think that. I had no reason to pose a question that I already knew the answer to. Kyubey is probably negatively influencing my conversational patterns._

The room rumbled, starting low, and then growing louder and louder. Almost imperceptibly, the air began to shimmer.

Outside, Diana could hear battle raging. She heard the high-pitched hum of plasma weapons, the loud bangs of explosions, and, worst of all, the tortured screams of the wounded and the dying.

 _You should duck,_ said the Incubator.

Out of the cacophony of sounds, Diana could very distinctly identify the sound of labored breathing, drawing closer and closer to the room. It was distorted, too deep to be human, and too rattling to be anything but terrifying.

Diana dove to the floor a second before a beam of light burst through the wall. For a second, everything was a blur of motion and confusion. When she looked up, the demon was still there.

There was another explosion of some sort behind her as Diana turned to run. Around her, the ship was in very predictable chaos. Fires burned, twisted and broken pieces of metal hung from the walls, and sparks flew. They hadn't put in her in a crowded area of the ship, so there weren't very many people around. She was alone.

Diana began to run, too scared to pay attention to the bolts of light zipping over her head. She had enough self-preservation to duck as a piece of the ceiling was struck by one of the bolts and sheared straight off, glowing and steaming. It fell to the ground behind her with a clatter, sending her stumbling forwards.

Somehow, the Incubator was still beside her, calmly walking along. _Your worry confuses me. Escape is a very viable option, but unnecessary exhibition of the emotion panic diminishes your chances of success._

 _Please,_ go away, Diana thought.

As the demon lurched towards her, the air rippled from the strength of the demon's horrible, bass rattle. The miasma surrounding her was almost tangible, and running felt like trying to move through water.

Diana veered to the side as the ship deck immediately beneath her feet exploded, covering the hallway with smoke. She had ducked into one of the side corridors that branched throughout the ship. Pressing herself against the wall, she listened for the breathing of the demon.

At the other end of the corridor, three demons burst through the wall. After a second, they all turned to look at Diana.

Diana squeezed her eyes tight. She didn't give a fuck if it was going to hurt or not, she just didn't want it to happen at all.

A wailing scream jolted Diana out of her shock. One of the demons no longer existed from the waist up, its tattered robes now dissolving into thin air while its disembodied legs spewed miasma. The others turned to the new combatant.

One second passed in a blur of red and gold and steel humming through the air, and when it was over, only the echoing screams of the demons and their grief cubes remained.

Christine was cut and bloodied, which caught Diana's attention first. But, even leaning on the massive two-handed longsword at her side, even with the cape trailing at her back torn and stained, Diana couldn't help but be awed. She moved with grace, despite the colored armor that covered her from the neck down. As she walked towards Diana, she caught a glimpse of the symbol printed on the back of Christine's cape: a golden lion, the same color as Christine's hair.

This was the Will of the Goddess, and for a moment, Diana could believe that she would be saved.

"Are you injured?" Christine asked, breathing heavily.

Mute, Diana shook her head.

"Good," she said. Letting her sword rest at her side, Christine leaned against the wall and ran a hand through her hair. "Those bastards. They take the effort to put their weakest demons into one of those mutated ships, have it cross several hundred thousand kilometers of empty space so we don't blow the landing pods to hell with point defense—and for _what?_ To _spite_ us?"

_Actually, this is consistent with previously documented demon behavior. Whereas a human fleet might run a boarding operation to capture high-ranking personnel, retrieve sensitive information, or secure hostages, I hypothesize that the demons are using boarding tactics for a twofold objective. First, to cause despair amongst the human ranks, thus bolstering the potency of their own miasma. Second, to deter potential magical girl strike teams from launching offensives into their controlled space, which would possibly disrupt miasma circulation among their forces. This is truly a coordinated effort by the demons, taking logistics, available firepower, and higher-thinking strategy into consideration—these demons might be demonstrating sapience. It is truly a remarkable event._

Diana slammed her head against the wall. "Goddess above, did I miss you."

With a grunt, Christine lifted herself upright once more. "Yoshio and I were separated during the fighting, and I need to find him. He was my responsibility, and if I fail to do anything else, I'm at least bringing him home safe. You're coming with me."

"No, it's cool, I think I'm pretty safe with the Incubator over here."

"Right," Christine said. "Incubator, link me up with him again."

Several seconds passed in silence, and all Diana could do was stand there, excluded from the conversation. Then, Christine nodded. "I've got his location. Come on."

Diana stood, letting the tension seep out of her body. There was still a ball of fear curled tight in her stomach, but standing next to Christine, in her costume, Diana felt her body relax. Behind them, the Incubator padded silently along, tail, as always, swishing from side to side.

As they made their way onwards, the ship creaked and groaned. The noise echoed throughout the walls, loud enough that Diana couldn't hear the demon approaching, but Christine could.

She made a step to the side, yanking Diana by the collar and moving her out of the line of fire, before dashing forwards, sword poised to lunge. With a spray of miasma, she speared the demon through the head.

Diana gaped, her limbs trembling. Before her, the demon dissolved into nothingness, leaving behind the Grief Cube.

"Are you alright?" Christine asked. Haltingly, Diana nodded.

"Good." As she started to move forwards, Christine tripped and stumbled forwards. Cursing, she braced herself against the wall with the hilt of her sword.

In the center of the hilt was a gem, glowing with a dim, faint light, like the sky marred by rain clouds. Both Christine and Diana's eyes were drawn to it, as they watched darkness swirl inside. Both girls were silent with deathly apprehension.

"Pass me that grief cube."

Without responding, Diana bent over to pick the grief cube up. She almost gasped as her fingers brushed against the obsidian surface, cold and dark and _ugly._ It hummed like it wanted to spring up and become alive again—to hurt her, to _kill_ her.

"Thanks," Christine said, taking the cube from Diana. Breathing heavily, she brought the cube against her soul gem and watched as the darkness was sucked away.

They walked on, but the silence between them was heavy. Christine's face was twisted with frustration, and her steps fell heavily against the ship's deck. Still shaking slightly, Diana could barely muster the strength to firmly place her feet on the ground. Only the sounds of explosions and the ever-present hum of the laser cannons firing interspersed the walk.

Eyes firmly fixed at her feet, Diana asked, "What's it like to be a magical girl?"

There was no response for some time as Christine turned the question over. Then, she said, "It's different for everybody. There are dark parts that will hurt anyone who becomes a magical girl, and there are moments of despair. We are still human. There are parts that I don't want to tell you about, because you deserve hope, and my failure to protect you shouldn't deny you that right."

Diana rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut up. I don't have a scratch on me. I'm just—just a little nervous, okay?"

When Christine turned to look at her, Diana quickly resumed the examination of her feet.

"There are still things that are different for me alone," Christine said. "I was trained for this. The McDonnell name has served both the Hierocracy and the military for generations."

The word "nepotism" almost sprang to Diana's tongue before she bit down, hard.

"And, you know, everyone else gets magical powers along with the super strength. I got a sword. One sword," she said, waving her longsword in the air. She smiled faintly. "But, honestly, that's something that I've come to prefer over the years. It makes me more attached to the weapon, as opposed to some junk that I can just toss away."

"Could you name the sword?"

Christine frowned. "I've never thought of that."

A shout echoed through the walls, freezing both Diana and Christine in their tracks. The voice was familiar.

Christine turned to the Incubator, once again engaging in telepathic conversation. This time, it only lasted a couple moments. As Diana watched them communicate silently, the urge to demand that she listen in grew, but she didn't say anything.

"Yoshio's nearby," Christine said, hurried and jittery. "He has demons on him. We have to hurry."

She broke into a run, faster than any normal human could hope to match, and Diana began to slip behind. A few seconds later, Christine rounded a corner, moving out of Diana's sight.

"Hey, wait!" Diana shouted, speeding up. Yells and bangs echoed from the corridor up ahead, yet Diana still could not see anything. There was a pattern in the white noise that sometimes sounded like a demon's breathing. As she ran, Diana wiped her hands against her thighs.

Diana turned just in time for Yoshio to be thrown backwards, his body hurtling towards her. Squealing in surprise, Diana skidded to a halt. Yoshio slammed into the wall next to her. Rolling over, he groaned.

Yoshio's plight didn't hold Diana's interest. Her eyes were fixated on the rippling air advancing towards Yoshio, the white robes, and the outstretched hand that glowed with awful light.

A sword cleaved through the demon's shoulder, cutting diagonally down to its hip. It died instantly. "Please be more careful," Christine said.

The ceiling behind Christine caved in, sending sparks and wires scattering everywhere. To Diana, very many things happened all at once.

A demon plunged down from the floor above, hands outstretched, about to envelop Christine in its grasp. Light glowed from its eyes as it reached forwards.

Christine was a blur of motion as she whirled around, reaching for her sword, lunging ahead to stab, when the demon spontaneously exploded. Diana blinked in surprise and confusion before she turned around.

Heat radiators still glowing from the shot, the plasma cannon resting in Yoshio's hand hummed. Growling, he picked himself up. "I don't believe that I'm the only one who could stand to be a bit more cautious."

Diana blinked again. The heat radiators weren't the only things that were glowing. From Yoshio's skin, there was an almost imperceptible white radiance. He walked, now, with an air of what seemed to be _authority,_ despite the complete lack of anything that would warrant him being in a position _of_ authority. He was just some Hierocracy kid who had his parents' ring, who had contacts in the military because the Hierocracy didn't want to have its children murdered, who had priority for evacuation…

Embarrassment colored Diana's cheeks red and made her limbs tingle. She felt very foolish, like an ignorant child.

Clumsily, without really having a clear idea of what she was doing or why, Diana went down on her knees and bowed at Yoshio's feet. Her lips, trembling, struggled to form the proper words.

"M-my Lord," she said.

As Diana looked up, she saw the pinched look in Yoshio's face, the way he scrunched his nose and cringed and turned his head slightly away when she spoke.

"So you know," Yoshio said, his voice short and strangled.

Christine placed a hand on Yoshio's shoulder. "My Lord—"

"Please don't call me that."

Yoshio' s shoulders heaved up and down. Trembling, Yoshio violently snatched his glasses off his face. Diana caught a few traces of moisture. His cheeks flushed, Yoshio rubbed his face against his palm.

"Neither of you call me that," he said. " _Especially_ not you, Lieutenant McDonnell. I have no desire to be elevated above the thousands of people who will die on this planet today. They struggle, just as hard as me or even _harder,_ and they pray for hope all the more fervently, but they will _die._ The men and women aboard this ship who fight, stronger than I could ever _hope_ to be, unnamed, unsung, are far more deserving."

Christine backed off, seemingly unsure of herself. In a second, though, she regained her composure.

"Well, if we're doing away with formality, you might as well call me Christine, not Lieutenant McDonnell. Being addressed by my family name is stifling, at least for me."

Yoshio took a deep breath, in and out. "All right." He turned to Diana, placing his glasses back on his face.

"Don't lay down your life for me," he said. "The title Prophet only denotes that I carry the name Kaname. Who my family members are shouldn't determine how valuable my life is. Protect yourself first."

As he spoke, the glow surrounding him died down. Diana wondered what had prompted it in the first place—scripture said that it was to provide proof of the Prophet's divinity, and sometimes to herald the manifestation of the Goddess' will. She didn't bother asking.

Diana began to sputter. "Speak for yourself," she said, gesturing at the plasma gun in Yoshio's hand. "What the hell have _you_ been doing?"

"I would," Christine said, "feel better about myself if the person I was supposed to be protecting didn't run around blasting demons all on his own."

"I can fire this weapon. I will help fight."

" _You_ should be staying behind me."

Yoshio placed the gun into the folds of his robes. "You _should_ be saving yourself, but I will never convince you to abandon me. You will never convince me to stand helplessly by."

The two of them stared at each other for a bit, before Diana cleared her throat and said, "Um, if you two are done standing at impasse?"

"Right," Christine said. "Now, even though it may seem counterintuitive, the safest place for any of us to be is aboard this ship. We haven't launched any magical girl strike teams, so they're all still aboard. As long as the cannons keep firing, this ship is alive. The Incubator tells me that the extant military has set up defensive lines around the engine cores. We reach them, you two get behind the lines, and then we wait for that battleship to get inside the system. Let's go."

The ship, Diana soon realized, was _very_ large compared to one small human being. It was much larger on the inside than it had seemed from the outside. The three of them spent much of their time crawling around the ship, Diana following one or two steps behind them, hiding in their shadow. Fires and debris blocked many of the conventional routes through the ship, and in several sections, atmosphere had been vacuumed out into space, rendering those areas uninhabitable. But even where no human being could possibly be alive, she could still hear the rattling breathes drawn by the demons.

From time to time, Diana's eyes flicked to Yoshio— _Kaname_ Yoshio, the Prophet. She felt so _stupid,_ and for a moment, feeling stupid was better than feeling scared. Feeling stupid happened in school to normal people who lived normal lives. Feeling scared was for times like these.

She could live with being the fool, or the sarcastic one. Making sarcastic remarks was at least something that was done by people who were _not_ under imminent threat of death. Imagining herself as a victim made the cold fog that filled the air around ruptured hydraulics feel like a blizzard.

_I am with a magical girl. She can keep me safe. Yoshio is a Prophet, descended from Kaname Tatsuya himself. He can guide me through this. I am going to be fine._

Diana stopped rubbing her arms against each other. Using herself as a security blanket felt so pathetic.

Her ears began to ring.

Yoshio froze, and Christine ground to a halt a second afterwards, looking at him quizzically. Diana brought up the rear.

"Um, is this some sort of Prophet super-sense issue?"

Yoshio shook his head.

"The ship is silent. Cannons aren't firing. Point defense and artillery share the same apertures, so point defense is down. The only thing left running is probably gravity and basic life support."

Yoshio's words were delivered monotonously, and his face was expressionless. His lips were dull and sluggish, as if they did not want to believe in the words that were being placed upon them.

Diana scrunched her pants up with her fists just to occupy her hands with something.

"That's bad, isn't it?"

"The ship is dead in space. Boarding ships that get close in have to exit firing range as soon as possible to avoid destruction. If a ship's guns are down, they don't have to worry about that."

"That doesn't matter," Christine said, cutting Yoshio off. "All it means is that we need to hurry."

Yoshio, after a bit of a pause, nodded.

In the background, Diana could hear a faint, distinct, _pop._

The ship shook, invisible fingers wrapping around the entire massive girth of the vessel as if it were nothing but a toy. Diana's knees gave way, and she fell to the ground. Beside her, Christine was using her sword to maintain balance. "Hey, you okay?" she asked, extending a hand to help Diana up.

Diana's hands were clasped around her mouth. She didn't remember if she had screamed.

She took Christine's hand. "Being terrified sucks."

As she saw Christine's hands shaking, Diana realized that they were only doing so because she had grasped them with her entire shaking arm.

"It's not," Diana said, her voice catching in her throat as she made her way to her feet, "it's not that I'm only fifteen or something like that. If I had spent my entire life up until now in a war, maybe it'd be different."

Some expression passed through Christine's face. Diana couldn't identify it.

"Everything was so peaceful yesterday. Hope was a useless concept, because there was nothing that could make me despair. And now, when I need it most, I can't find it. You guys—you guys say that you're going to get us all out alive, but—but how can you say that?"

"It's what they tell me to do," Christine answered.

There was another _pop,_ and then Diana could place the rhythm of the breathing that was bearing down upon them.

Her brain did not have enough time to process the information and warn the others before the demon was upon them, tearing through steel with its searing light, deafening Diana with an almighty, bestial roar. It was the kind of sound Diana would imagine that a person enraged would make—or maybe a person tortured, or one dying. This demon was different. It was larger, six arms emerged from its robes, and Diana could swear that she could see flashes of red amongst the squares that obscured its face.

It extended a hand and batted Yoshio to the side. He hit a wall and did not move. Growling, the demon, too tall to fit into the corridor, began crawling its way towards him.

Yelling, Christine dashed forward. One of the demon's hands shot out to intercept her. In one swift motion, she moved the arm to the side with her blade and then, to complete the arc, brought her sword slashing down through the demon's torso.

The demon roared again as the blade cut through its body. Growling, it turned its head to face Christine. For a moment, its body was bathed in light, and Diana couldn't help but be reminded of what Yoshio had looked like. Then, a beam of light, almost too fast for Diana's eyes to track, pulverized the floor at Christine's feet. The explosion made Diana scream as a wave of pressure washed over her.

 _Without immediate intervention, those two will almost certainly die,_ a voice spoke in her mind.

Groaning, Yoshio raised his weapon and fired two shots. The demon batted both of them aside before returning fire, and Yoshio only barely avoided being vaporized.

Like a ghost, the Incubator was there beside Diana. It didn't make eye contact with her, for it only sat there and waited for what it knew to be her inevitable response.

 _Humans always need to know the stakes,_ the Incubator said. _Kybuey taught me that. They need to have the consequences displayed immediately before them. As if the eventual heat death of the universe wasn't enough. The concept of an "identity" makes humans so selfish. If I die, I can be replaced. Humans don't think that, even though it's true._

The battle played out before Diana. Between Christine's superhuman speed and Diana's preoccupation with the incubator, Diana could barely determine what was happening.

When she spoke in thought, everything seemed to move more slowly as her mind raced in comparison to the physical world. It felt unnatural, speaking without the physical sensation of her lips moving. Only now, when the Incubator had taken it upon itself to change her life forever, did the discrepancy become noticeable. She didn't want to _think_ her way through a contract. That felt too insincere.

_Is there a point? If I contract, will they live?_

_Almost assuredly yes._

_Is there still a point in the long run? I'm scared and helpless. What could I possibly do to help anybody?_

_You will have power._

_And can that power be used to ultimately defeat the demons?_

_I have no way of knowing that._

The demon turned towards her, its eyes flashing. Christine took advantage of her opponent's distraction to land another blow.

"What are you doing?" Christine yelled. "You have to get out of here!"

_There are so many human beings alive. I'm just one teenage girl. What could I possibly do?_

_You could fight._

_For what?_

_I am an Incubator. I would presume that you would fight to survive, but my perspective may very well be flawed._

Diana imagined herself standing at the edge of a cliff, and neither faith nor hope would hold her back from taking the step into uncertainty, and neither of them would break her fall when she hit bottom. Envy coursed through Diana's mind. Yoshio was a Prophet, so couldn't he talk to the Goddess? Wasn't that what Prophets _did?_ If there was a Goddess, Diana prayed for her to speak. She wanted assurance. There was only silence.

_We are going to be fine._

Diana did not feel courageous. She had no idea how Christine could wield a sword and dare fight the demons, and she had even less of an idea how Yoshio, an ordinary human being with nothing but a mundane gun, could even fight them. But, for one moment, even if she did not feel courageous, she was not afraid.

Diana was surprised when verse began reciting itself within her mind. She couldn't deny that the opiate was comforting, but she still didn't like it. Religious lessons in school never held her attention.

_The Litany of Courage. Mankind will persevere, if not in body, then in spirit. The soul of the faithful will never succumb to fear, for the faithful knows in her heart that the Goddess shall protect her, and that those who take the Goddess' power shall stand beside her. The faithful is never alone, for she stands in the company of the many and the great, and so they are never truly afraid._

The drug soothed her, but she knew that sometime, she would wake up, and the spell would be gone.

"Cover me!" she shouted to Christine.

"What?"

"Please."

Christine growled. There were numerous cuts across her costume, bits of armor plating torn and broken, with blood dripping through the gaps. Rolling to the side, she planted herself between Diana and the demon, using her sword to block the hands and teeth that sought to crush her, bobbing and weaving to avoid incineration.

"I want to be free from fear," Diana said. "I want to find the strength to face despair and death on my own terms. Even if it's only for one moment, I don't want to be afraid in the slightest of whatever's coming."

_Excellent. The contract has been initiated._

The Incubator reached forwards with the _things_ that dangled from its ears.

_I hear that this process is excruciatingly painful._

A couple seconds later, Diana had a soul gem resting in the palm of her hand. An empty feeling of disappointment settled itself in the bottom of her stomach. Besides being excruciatingly painful, as the Incubator had promised, the process of becoming a magical girl had not made her feel extraordinarily special. She was the same girl that she had been five minutes ago. Millions of others had undergone the same procedure, and most of them were probably stronger and braver than her.

Then Diana saw Yoshio's body lying like a ragdoll carelessly thrown on the ground, his arm obviously broken, his groans only barely audible. Even if the Goddess canonically could not directly touch the affairs of man, there still had to be a point to it all. Diana _refused_ to believe that her contract would amount to nothing. First, that would be excessively cruel, and second, it would be unrealistic.

She would fight. It was an obligation, now.

Diana transformed in a swirl of blue-tinged light, the same color as her soul gem. The color shifted, from dark to murky to light, hints of green in between.

_They're like the waves back home._

The silliest urge to paint the colors shot through her mind.

Her soul gem rematerialized on her left shoulder as a blue clasp, connecting two pieces of white fabric across her chest. Below her waist, her ordinary pants were replaced by a pleated skirt. Now, Diana understood why magical girls could wear outfits that seemed ludicrously impractical and still fight. The costume flowed around her, water in a basin, and she felt more comfortable than she had ever felt in any normal clothing. It was an extension of her body.

Diana felt new weight on her back. At the same time, her finger instinctively curled around something in her hands. It was a bow, curved noticeably inwards at the center to make a distinctive "w" shape.

Diana knew how to fight. It only made sense that she did. The Incubators wanted their magical girls to be ready to prolong the life of a mortal universe as soon as possible. In one motion, she took an arrow from the quiver at her back, fitted it into the bow, and drew the string. Her muscles pulsed as the tension in the bow flowed into her limbs. It was power. Diana derived no battle high from it, but it was still power, and that was better than fear.

Her surroundings were much brighter now. Diana was too busy to wonder why.

The bow hummed as she released the string, sending the arrow rocketing forwards straight at the demon. She expected it to dodge or block, and then realized that, from the perspective of a magical girl, the demon was moving _much_ more slowly than it had before.

The demon burst apart in a spray of miasma as the arrow slammed into its body. Diana had never seen a kinetic energy weapon in her life. She was mildly disappointed that the Armada had phased them out almost two centuries ago.

The ship rumbled once more, and as Diana turned around to find the source, she didn't notice Christine and Yoshio looking on in awe.

Diana gasped in surprise. The air had turned two shades lighter and had stopped rippling. As a magical girl, Diana could feel the miasma withdraw from the hallways of the ship.

"They're retreating?"

Diana's mind was abruptly filled with chatter as telepathic communication lines that included all magical girls by default buzzed to life. All demons aboard the ship, along with several others, had abruptly withdrawn. They appeared to be regrouping for a resumption of traditional ship-to-ship combat.

She listened to the conversation for a few more moments before the silence that fell on her physical ears finally registered. "Uh, guys?" she said, turning to Yoshio and Christine. "Didn't we have a rendezvous point to get to? Also, I know that Prophets are famed for their ability to die glorious deaths as martyrs, but Yoshio's not looking too good, and we may or may not want him bleeding out on us."

Yoshio coughed. "I'm fine. Look behind you."

As Diana turned, her eyes reflexively squinted to adjust to the light. She stared at the light for several very long, very confused moments, trying to realize what it meant, before the exact form of the light finally registered.

Sprouting from her back were two massive, glowing wings. Slowly, Diana brought one of them forward and stroked it with her hand. They felt warm, like a blanket, and they yielded to her touch, breaking apart and flowing around her fingers.

It was one of those impossible occurrences, like _actually_ winning the lottery. Nobody alive would ever have to be concerned about it, _ever_ —except, of course, for one person. There were no rehearsals for something like this. There was no possible way society could prepare anyone for such a realization.

 _Just as I thought,_ the Incubator said, once again appearing after the battle was over. _Ever since this attack was detected, the Incubators have been particularly suspicious that you, Diana Markos, would serve as the next host for the anomaly. You had much potential. You have realized that potential. You live, your friends live, humanity may experience that thing you speak of so much and so greatly, hope…_

Lazily, the Incubator licked its paw.

_…and I have a new agent that can reliably harvest grief cubes. Everybody is a winner._

Diana swallowed. "Why didn't you do it earlier? If you had told me about all of this in the first place, you could have saved lives."

_Well, who knows what could have happened if you contracted earlier. The demons might well have called in reinforcements and blockaded the entire system. Now that they've hesitated, you have a small window of opportunity to escape along with the civilian evacuation crafts. I recommend you do so immediately._

"Yes, because _fucking_ guesswork is a perfect justification for you playing with me for the last several hours!" Diana shouted. Her mind was loud and unorganized, and she was too busy channeling anger to use her thoughts to communicate. The light captured in the soul gem on her shoulder swirled, with the blue and green making storm clouds. "Why didn't you _tell me?_ I've been running around like an _idiot,_ with no idea _what_ to do, and you could have just said, 'Hey, guess what, you're the new Servant! Congratulations! Make a contract and become a magical girl!' That would've worked pretty well, no? How the _fuck_ does everyone win now?"

 _I am disappointed in your lack of faith in my pragmatism,_ the Incubator said. _There is a final, determinate reason why I didn't propose a contract earlier. It would not have given me an anomaly. I have studied emotional science for quite a long time. My colleagues might have pestered you for a contract the instant they determined that you had potential. Faced with the immediate gravity of your situation, and, my compliments, a healthy sense of practicality, you naturally would have agreed. Your mindset would have been wrong. Your wish would not be sufficient to initiate the anomaly. I needed you afraid._

"And you _knew_ that it would happen?"

_Of course. You, unlike the universe, are a fixed entity. There are no variables._

Yoshio shifted, groaning. _We have to go, now._

Hurrying forwards, Christine offered a hand. _Are you injured?_

 _I can be healed,_ Yoshio said, making his way to his feet. _I've had the captain of the ship change course to rendezvous with the evacuation ships._

Diana turned towards the Incubator. "Leave. You are about as welcome in my presence as sewage."

Quietly, the Incubator walked away.

 _I'm not afraid,_ Diana said, turning to Yoshio. _We don't have to evacuate, do we? I'm a Servant. I can take on the demons._

Yoshio shook his head. _The demon fleet is too large, and the battleship isn't here yet. It is too risky to keep you in combat. I am getting you to safety no matter what._

_What was that, earlier? About martyrs?_

_Let's not lie to ourselves,_ Yoshio said. _My life preserves morale. Your life preserves_ actual lives. _I have a Prophet's sight, I have a connection with the Goddess, and the Goddess makes it known that I represent her words. In the face of someone who represents the Goddess' will, I am nothing. I can't kill demons, and you took care of that one with one shot. If you want to make sure that all this had some purpose, then you'll value your life_ very highly.

 _Oh, come on,_ Diana said, burying her face in her right hand. _You're_ nothing? _I could probably smell that bullshit through the vacuum of space. Even if you weren't a Prophet, that is around ten degrees of fucked up self-esteem. My point still stands. You need to listen to yourself when you talk about martyrs._

"Are we done? The Incubator said we have a small window. I don't intend on dying on this ship. _Are we done?"_ Christine asked, her eyes scanning back and forth between Yoshio and Diana.

"I'm sorry," Diana said.

"As am I."

"Good," Christine said, her armor clinking as she turned to lead the way. "We're done."

-x-

The evacuation crafts were guarded by the Armada, so any civilians aboard were safe. Diana didn't ask how many were still on the planet, and how many would be left behind as the Armada withdrew in the face of superior forces and a lack of reinforcement. The promised battleship would come, eventually. Every single military personnel on Genesis and in orbit, including its newest _mahou shoujo_ inductee, knew that it would be too late.

The three of them, the Prophet, the Servant, and the ordinary magical girl, sat in a private corner of the evacuation craft. Diana had tuned out the military communication lines almost an hour ago. None of it affected her now, and she had shivered with every sector of orbital space the military had to give up. The cynical part of her, the one that had been tempered by news reports and textbook statistics, was unaffected. The part of her that was a teenage girl wondered _why._ The people of Genesis did not deserve to die, and the idea that they were about to be slaughtered as cattle to feed a hungry devil made the universe seem like a very scary place.

Yoshio was using a free holographic display and his newfound military clearance, which nobody had yet bothered to take away, to watch the battle unfold. Giant demons and mighty Armada cruisers were only dots, far, far away from each other, and a light-second was only a meter. His eyes darted between the dancers in the deadly ballet, watching as ships darted in and out of the effective range of the lasers, as one ship dove in too close too long and did not have the time to possibly avoid the laser that slammed into its side. He watched the battle and did not look at anything else.

Christine was lying down in the corner of the room, the red light of her communications device on.

"What are you listening to?" Diana asked.

"Evacuation reports."

It had been the same channel that Diana had turned off. She looked, from time to time, at the magical girl, back in her dress uniform again. To Diana's eyes, Christine looked smaller without the red-and-gold armor bulking her figure. In her hands, Christine turned over a small silver pendant that she had taken from her pocket. Diana saw the mark of the Rose peeking out between her fingers. The Rose gleamed as Christine held the pendant up to the light, her eyes not moving from the contours of the silver. It was the mark of the Goddess and those who served her.

Now, it was _her_ mark.

The mark of the Goddess, displayed silently before Christine, did nothing as millions succumbed to planetary bombardment on a dying world, now far, far away.

Outside the door to their room, people were gathering. The good news spread quickly. Civilian evacuee, Hearth scientist, and Armada soldier alike were all just outside, right behind the wall. The weight of the hopes of humanity rested on her shoulders.

She couldn't be afraid, could she? It was very reasonable to assert that her inability to act today had been the result of a bad case of nerves. She couldn't be afraid if she was the Servant, because then, what would the _point_ have been? Discovering that the answer to the meaning of her life was only nothingness was terrifying. That was the entire point of the wish.

She was, in truth, afraid. Whatever miracles of the flesh a magical girl's wish could perform, and however much physical strength was granted, hope was still a tiny gem, so fragile-looking as to be mistaken for glass.

As the people beyond the wall prayed, Diana knew that the prayers were directed towards her. She bore the legacy of Akemi Homura, who had delivered man out of the darkness during the revelation. But she was no legend, she preached of no Goddess, and she had never had a religious experience.

Diana knew that she was just a girl, and for all the world she wished that the people praying outside could have someone else to pray to besides a girl, alone and afraid.

-x-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story's been hosted for months on ff.net, but I recently decided on a whim to post it here. Why? For more coverage, of course--nothing drives a fanfiction author harder than acclamation and praise. I will prostitute this story until federal agents come to arrest me, so help me God.
> 
> Anyway, if you want to read more, you might as well just go to ff.net. I'll be updating this story on a once-a-week serial basis on AO3. For kicks, I guess. Why not? 
> 
> Also, 12 chapters is hilariously speculative, but it is what's planned.


	2. Keter

The cathedral was a symbol of power. Political power and religious power were not so much two sides of the same coin as they were an arbitrary distinction for what was the same concept. Power was power, and a cathedral that served as a monument to the strength and solidarity of the Hierocracy was built boldly, with soaring roofs and buttresses, but also with tempering prudence, with the concrete that interlaced the building's structure reminding the populace that faith in the Hierocracy was the only thing that kept the nightmares away.

Faith in the Hierocracy _had been_ the only thing that kept the nightmares away.

The main chamber of the cathedral was completely deserted save for one tiny figure, her back slouched against the corner of the massive space. Occasionally, her eyes darted up from her notebook to scan the area before her. Then, she would move her gaze back to the notebook, her pencil continuing to scratch back and forth across the paper.

Diana started as one of the doors to the cathedral creaked open. She hadn't expected people.

The girl raised a hand in greeting as she walked towards Diana. "Hey!"

Slowly, Diana nodded. "Hello. What are you doing here?"

The girl smiled brightly before raising her hand and flashing a soul gem ring. "I'm Tanaka Akira, member of the Hearth. Nice to meet you!"

"Did you come here for the sole purpose of meeting me? I really, really hope that the answer is 'no.' I also don't want you to think that I'm thinking highly of myself, because that's not what's going on right now. It's just that, if it _were_ the case that you came here just to meet me, I'd be a bit perturbed."

Akira's smile cracked and then collapsed. "I heard that you were around, and I was coming here anyways, so I thought I might drop by the main chamber. Is that bad?"

"You know who I am?"

"Well, yeah. Everybody knows who you are."

"See, becoming a species-wide celebrity was never really one of my life goals. Anyways, what's a Hearth engineer doing in a cathedral? I thought the Inquisition was the only branch of the military with serious ties to the Hierocracy."

Akira's smile popped back up on her face. "Oh! Yeah, I don't usually deal with the Hierocracy, but people have to do check-ups on the containment centers periodically. Faith is all well and good, but it never hurts to have hard numbers backing that faith up, eh? "

Diana shrugged, head dipping back down to her notebook.

"You _did_ go to basic training, right?" Akira asked.

"Yeah. Why is that a question?"

Akira bobbed her head from side to side as she contemplated Diana's query. "Well, some people get exempted. If being a magical girl is part of the family history, and there's reason to believe that the girl's already been trained for the job…"

"Were you one of those people?"

"Yup!" Akira said. "My father is a cardinal on Mars, and my aunt's a captain in the Third Fleet. But, I didn't get exempted. My aunt intervened and said that I needed basic training, no matter how ready the rest of my family or the military thought I was. Even with most of your childhood spent preparing for it…"

"Was it useful for you?"

Akira tilted her head. "I dunno. Most of it deals with psychology."

"Yeah," Diana said, her lips curling upwards. "To be honest, when I went through it, it really wasn't a great confidence-booster. It's like they figure that it's inevitable that I lose it somewhere along the line, and they're just trying to pre-empt it. Oh, wait."

"Aw, come on," Akira said, sitting down beside Diana. "Don't be so negative. You're the Servant, uh…"

"I'm Diana Markos. Nice to meet you, Akira."

Akira buried her face in her hands. "Goddess, I'm so embarrassed. I swear, ordinarily I would remember your name! It's just, you know…"

"Relax. You'd never met me before."

"That doesn't make it any better."

"Well, no, it really doesn't, given that you could've just looked it up on one of the magic text input boxes that are _literally everywhere._ Also, you're in the Hearth, which means that you should be even more technologically apt than the average person," Diana said. She looked up to see Akira pouting, her lower lip trembling. "That was a joke."

Akira stuck her tongue out. "You know, for a Servant, you're not very nice."

"Akemi Homura went from continent to continent purging Earth of the demons. That doesn't sound very _nice._ It sounds quite powerful, and very ruthless, and very efficient. That's what's expected of me, isn't it? Fuck, I'm sorry, that sounded so arrogant. But still. The point stands."

Akira shrugged. "I guess."

"So, what do you do in the Hearth?" Diana asked.

"Eh," Akira said, rolling her shoulders. "There are dozens of divisions. I'm in the Resources umbrella department. For the most part, I do engineering. It's pretty nice. Are you interested in history?"

"To some degree."

"Well, it turns out that before the War—"

"The First War?"

Akira stumbled over her words. "Sorry?"

"The War is the First War now. Guess which war we're in right now."

"O-oh," Akira said, scratching the back of her head. "Right. It's still, uh, kinda hard to internalize. Anyways, before the _First_ War, magical girls were advancing humanity behind the scenes with all sorts of crazy wishes. I think the Hierocracy got some historians to back up that part of their theology with substantive evidence. That being the case, the Hearth is just an extension of what was happening all along. It's pretty cool. That's my little lecture on the Hearth for newcomers."

Diana rested her chin on her knees. "An appeal to history?"

"You mentioned Akemi Homura ."

Smiling, Diana said, "Fair enough."

With a great yawn, Akira stretched her limbs. "I gotta go. You know, check up on the same old containment centers. You enjoy your stay on Earth, all right?"

"I intend on doing so. It seems that this is the most I'll get to see of it before they ship me off to the stars."

"Hey, I'll be at the hotspots within the week as well. Someone has to improve supply line efficiency, after all."

"Huh," Diana said. "So we might see each other?"

Akira shrugged. "It's not very likely," she said. "There are a lot of magical girls on a lot of ships doing very different jobs. But, hey, if we do, it'd be pretty cool, right? I mean, we've barely gotten to know each other now, so maybe we could talk more?"

_Friends are a_ good _thing, Diana._

"I'll look you up in one of the Armada directories if I get the chance."

"Cool!" Akira said, turning to walk away, turning to walk away. "See you around, then."

As the cathedral door creaked shut, Diana wondered if Akira had ever seen frontline combat. For that matter, had any of the people who were her superiors amongst the _mahou shoujo_ in the Armada ever seen that sort of combat? There had been Servants between her and Akemi Homura, to prevent atrocities and to protect the hope of mankind, but they had never faced an existential risk, had they?

As her eyes began to drift aimlessly across the surface of the cathedral, her conversation with Akira began to slip from her immediate memory. The Hierocracy was to protect her from the demons and the nightmares.

Right?

She remembered the Incubator showing her the massive, twisted ships of ethereal flesh that the demons used, howling monstrosities of arms and eyes and gnashing teeth that pulled their way across the stars as fast as any human ship could. They moved from star to star faster than light itself could. Mankind could not run. It could only fight and pray.

The Hierocracy had protected mankind for centuries, just as Akemi Homura and the first _mahou shoujo_ had. From that glorious beginning, the Hierocracy had served mankind tirelessly. They needed no monetary contributions, no donations, no supplication and no sacrifice. Those were the vestiges of corrupted, false religions. All the Hierocracy needed was dedication and faith. With those two things, the Hierocracy of Mankind, the Kingdom of the Goddess, would last unto eternity.

_Right?_

But, Diana thought, the people who had founded the Hierocracy could have never anticipated or prepared for this. When the Demons had last threatened the very existence of mankind, they had been confined to Earth. Now they came from beyond the depths of space. The Hierocracy was surrounded. They told her, day after day, that the Goddess was not omnipotent. But then what _could_ she do?

Diana had never prayed _purely_ of her own volition. Of course she believed. When miracles and Prophets were obviously existent _not_ believing would be arbitrarily skeptical. But she had never had any use for communication with the Goddess, and honestly, actual conversation with a deity was something that she would be skeptical of, no matter how much evidence pointed to that deity's mere existence.

Doubt notwithstanding, Diana made her way to the center of the cathedral, the focal point from which concentric circles of pews radiated. A ray of light from a perforation in the center of the ceiling illuminated the far side of the room. It was still morning, and the sun was low in the sky.

If the Goddess was not omnipotent, what point was there in asking her for petty favors? Or was it supposed to be a matter of asking the right questions, and never favors?

Throughout the worlds of the Hierocracy, people panicked at the news of the demon attacks. Over the course of the next week, demons, attacking via routes orthogonal to the galactic plane, devoured any worlds not close enough to be covered by one of the fleets. Mankind collectively prayed for a benevolent Goddess to deliver it.

_Goddess,_ Diana thought, _you have chosen me to be your Servant. I don't know why, and I don't suppose that I ever will._

She felt, for the briefest moment, the crazy, stupid urge to be sarcastic with a Goddess. How was she _supposed_ to pray? The kind she had been taught to perform felt artificial, like she was painting the façade of genuine communication over what she really felt.

Diana let her mind ramble.

_Your_ mahou shoujo _protect the hope of humanity, right? At what cost? We can't serve mankind without shouldering some sort of burden._ _Are our wishes meant only to serve the greater good of humanity? Then I'm a coward and a traitor. I used my wish to run away from reality, to wish for a false paradise, and I can only live in it by using this superficial power that you've given me as a crutch._

_I do not know where to find hope. I don't know how not to be afraid. You'd, I don't know, fucking think that out of all the piles of holy writ that we've churned out over the years we'd get an easy-read manuscript, some sort of guide for idiots like me, but I guess not. And you're not saying anything. I hear nothing._

_I hear more about magical girls now that I'm one of them. I hear stories about people using their wishes for the most selfless things. I hear the stories of the girls who came close to the brink of absolute despair, with one thing, and only one thing, holding them back. They say it was faith. And they say they survived._

_I don't think I have faith in you. You don't even answer me._

_Even if I have power now, that won't stop me from spiraling into despair, will it? What can I do to pull myself out? I only have this laundry list of unanswered and unanswerable questions. It's pathetic. Having the last moments of my life be filled with nothing but empty blackness sounds terrifying._

_They say you will save me when that happens. I hope you never have to. I'm afraid that you will._

_What is the fucking use in praying to a Goddess that, by her own holy writ, does not intervene in mortal affairs? The first Prophet said that you are constantly fighting for me, but I don't know how, and I don't know what the consequence of that fight is._

_If you're fighting for me, you will give me courage, right? And when I am about to die, you will deliver my soul, if not to glory, then from evil, right? That's what the books say._

_You can do at least that much. I believe in that. Otherwise there isn't any point. Maybe some people could live without points. I think Christine could. She must see that kind of thing all the time. Hope's just a drop against a torrent of despair. I couldn't stay sane in a world where, after living through all of that, after flushing your life down the cosmic toilet of bullshit and arbitrary misfortune, you learn that at the end of the line, there's nothing but cold death and damnation._

_I'm weak like that. Or maybe I'm just underselling myself. I like to tell other people that I'm a well-adjusted girl, you know?_

_You'll be there if I can't pull myself out of despair. I can believe in that. Thank you._

The horns mounted at the top of the cathedral began to bellow a strong, melodic tune. Throughout the planet Earth, billions of human beings heard the same sound, calling them to prayer. The magical restraining bolts of the containment chambers in the back of the cathedral glowed and hummed with power, as the miasma behind the walls, having surged forwards since yesterday evening, drew back.

_I'll talk to Yoshio later. They say the Prophets know things about you that nobody else does. Even if you can't give me any concrete answers, even if this is more an exercise in meditation than in wishing, Yoshio can help me._

Diana figured that she had already done enough prayer for her noon obligation, but force of habit compelled her to at least finish with something canonical.

_May the Goddess' name be showered in praise, and may the glory of her deeds be known by every soul under her protection. May it be known that, by the grace of her might, the dominion of mankind is shielded from evil. Glory and long life to the Prophets, who herald the words of the Goddess. Glory and long life to the Servant, who—_

Diana buried her face in her hands.

_I need to learn some new stock prayers from Yoshio. Amen._

Diana's communications device buzzed softly. It was a call from Yoshio.

"Speak of an Incubator," Diana muttered.

_What is it?_

_My older sister wants to speak with you._

Diana stiffened, a tiny pit of nervousness forming in her navel. _All right. When and where?_

_I'm to escort you to her. Meet outside the base where the military first dropped you off. There'll be a waiting transport._

-x-

Meeting Yoshio at the base was the first time she had seen him since coming to Earth. Most of her time had been occupied with training. She had no idea what Yoshio had been up to.

Yoshio gave her a curt nod in greeting. "Did you have a pleasant day off?"

"Half a day hardly counts," Diana said, boarding the transport.

"Get used to it."

Diana turned her head to find the source of the familiar voice. "Yeah, I'm sure you have to suffer through unimaginable pains. Next time, I'll bring a medal to label you a martyr."

Turning around in the pilot's seat, Christine glared at Diana.

Yoshio coughed. "We can turn down the hostility, right? We're on the same side."

"Sorry," Diana said, dipping her head downward.

Christine's cheeks flushed with momentary embarrassment. "Yeah, yeah."

"Anyways," Diana said, looking back up, "none of us have seen official deployment against the demons yet, so I don't think that anyone can really pull the whole bitter veteran shtick on anyone else."

"I'm still your superior, Servant or not."

Rolling her eyes in a practiced movement, Diana stuck her tongue out at Christine, who shook her head in exasperation.

The transport rose from the ground with a fluid, pleasant hum, smoother than the older model that Yoshio had used in New Genesis. Diana leaned against the window as they gained altitude.

Himmelsschloss, the throne capital of humanity, was arrayed before her, sprawled from horizon to horizon. From the glimmer of the lower-built business sectors, to the soaring domes and columns of the Hierocracy monuments, Himmelsschloss radiated power. It had been designed that way. After the First War, as the nations of Earth scrambled to rebuild their broken cities and reclaim land lost to the demons, the newly-formed Hierocracy set out to build a concrete testament to its strength. Humanity was to be led into a new age, one governed by the Goddess and the heaven in which she resided.

Diana's eyes darted back and forth between the different buildings. If she had a week, then the sculptures and paintings and murals stored within the museums and churches, crafted by minds seized with religious fervor in the name of the Goddess, would all be hers to devour.

If she had a week and humanity itself was not afraid that its own days were numbered, then she might as well own the universe.

Behind Diana, Yoshio sat quietly, hunched over as he twiddled his fingers.

"Hey," Diana said, "why _were_ you on New Genesis, anyways? What the hell were you doing off Earth?"

"I was being very foolish."

"That's a given, but it doesn't tell me anything," Diana said.

"It doesn't matter," Yoshio said. "There was nothing for me to do and nothing that I could do on Earth. My sister is the Prophet-Queen, and any meaningless position below that could just as well be fulfilled by hundreds of people just as qualified as me, if not more. Living like that just makes the title 'Prophet' a meaningless name."

There was a long silence. Diana did not know how to respond. In all her years of life, she had never tried to talk a teenager out of a pseudo-life crisis.

"Well," Diana said, finally, "you exist to remind people that there's still a way out. Even if it's just you sitting on your ass and just _being_ , I think that's good enough."

"So I can sing soothing lullabies as people suffer and die, with me powerless to stop it? I'm a man. I can only watch the _mahou shoujo_ and will never join them."

"You don't want to think like that," Christine said, keeping her eyes fixed forwards on her flight path. "On New Genesis, you did plenty. I wasn't guarding a passive doll. If you want to act, _act._ Standing still and doubting yourself is a fantastic waste of time. It gets draining."

Diana lightly shoved Yoshio in the shoulder. "The point being, the amount of angst on this transport should, on balance, be _minimized._ Got it?"

Yoshio sat still for a second, surprised, before he exhaled slowly. "Right."

"Anyways," Diana asked, turning to Christine, "why're you here? I thought you'd be done with us after New Genesis."

"I was due back on Earth anyways, and someone needed to chaperone you two around."

"Aw," Diana said, smiling. "Aren't we lucky?"

Christine sighed. "Call me old-fashioned, but it'd make me feel bad if you two died and I wasn't there to try to stop it."

"Knight in shining armor?" Diana asked, leaning over Christine's seat. Her teeth flashed as she smiled.

"Maybe."

Yoshio cleared his throat. "I think that it'd be prudent for you to know that there'll be Inquisitional representatives at the meeting."

Like some invisible trap had been sprung, Christine stiffened. "What does the Inquisition want?"

Under Christine's questioning, Yoshio sank a bit lower in his seat. "They've legitimated their presence using their ties to the Hierocracy. In a way, they're trying to act as mediators between the military and the Hierocracy."

"Presumptuous bitches," Christine muttered.

"Is this some sort of inter-group rivalry that I should be aware of?" Diana asked. "Now that I'm part of the Armada, should I not like the Inquisition?"

Christine growled. "You shouldn't like the Inquisition because they are some of the most paranoid, counter-productive people you will ever have the misfortune to meet in your entire life."

"Oh," Diana said, coughing lightly. "Right."

Once again, Diana's eyes were drawn to the window. The transport was approaching the center of Himmelsschloss.

The vast majority of Himmelsschloss was lofty, classical architecture, rooted in the annals of mankind's history. The Goddess' Seat did away with that mundane business. What with the revolving antigravity halo crowning the top of the metal tower piercing the sky, the Goddess' Seat, Diana knew, was very much a declaration of the Hierocracy's _divine_ right to rule.

"What's your sister like?" Diana asked, turning to Yoshio. "You know the Prophet-Queen personally."

"I know her on a familial level," Yoshio said. "So I'm not fit to answer that question. The answer that you receive will be biased."

Diana became acutely aware of a tension in her shoulders. Closing her eyes, she relaxed her muscles.

As the transport docked at one of the upper levels of the tower, two magical girls walked out to greet them. Both were out of their costumes. They wore the military uniform of the Inquisition, similar to that of the Armada magical girl's, but with darker colors and more buckles.

One of them was tall and lanky, with a short bob cut. The other girl whom the first was following a step behind had long, straight hair, a perpetual smile, and slightly flushed cheeks. Christine caught sight of the second girl and blanched.

"Fuck."

Diana raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

" _Fuck."_

Behind them, Yoshio remained silent as he raised a hand to adjust his collar.

The second girl's eyes widened slightly as Christine stepped out of the transport. "A pleasure to see you here, Lieutenant McDonnell. It's been some time."

Christine only nodded stiffly.

Her smiling face remaining unchanged, the girl turned to Diana and extended a hand. "Maria D'Arco, Inquisition. It's a pleasure to meet you, Diana Markos."

As she shook the offered hand, Diana tried not to let her surprise at Maria's knowledge of her name show. "Likewise."

"This is my assistant, Julia Choi," Maria said, turning to the girl behind her, who gave a short nod. "Anyways, Christine, you won't be joining us, will you?"

A smile somehow tore its way across Christine's face. "I don't suppose I will be, no."

"Well, in that case, I'll have Julia keep you company."

At Maria's words, Julia detached herself from Maria's back and walked to meet Christine.

Maria made a sweeping motion with her hand. Taking the cue, Yoshio and Diana followed Maria into the tower.

After they had been walking for some time, Yoshio cleared his throat. "What do you know of the situation in the rebellious outer colonies, General D'Arco?" he asked, hands tucked behind his back.

Maria's eyes lit up. "Please, Maria is fine. It wouldn't do to have excessive formality between the Prophets and the _mahou shoujo_ who exist to serve them. Why do you ask?"

"I've been doing homework."

The words, Diana noted, flowed so much more easily out of Yoshio when he was talking about the war. There was no crippling self-doubt, or glaring, social ineptitude resulting in long, embarrassing pauses. She counted herself lucky that Christine had been with her on the transport.

"Some heretics have made statements that they'll cooperate," Maria said. "They are all lying. I expect treason and backstabbing within the year. It's my job to preempt these revolutions and crush them in infancy. They haven't made any moves yet, but they will. I must wait."

Yoshio frowned. "Why not crush them now, if you're so certain?"

"If I make a mistake, then we inadvertently wage war against a planet of innocents, and I don't think you'd like that very much. I am also not certain _which_ rebellious faction will eventually prove to be the rotten apple, only that one of them will. We strike a delicate balance between prudency and atrocity."

"Sorry," Diana said, uncomfortable at her own awkward insertion into the conversation, "but if the demon enemy wants to kill us all, then wouldn't it be in the rebels' best interests to side with us? Why are we worrying about them?"

"Heretics aren't rational thinkers," Maria said, smiling a bit wider. "Additionally, it's always good practice to assume that all of your enemies are cooperating against you. The enemy of your enemy is still your enemy. Even if they are not actually cooperating, the Hierocracy having to fight a war on two fronts puts us at a severe disadvantage. One of those fronts being internal can do nothing but exacerbate the situation."

Diana shrugged. "But we don't even know if the demons are sapient, do we? If they're not, then the possibility of cooperation is a big fat zero."

"They might as well be, what with the sophistication of their deployment patterns," Yoshio said. "When the demons are compared to us, we're a tragedy of logistics. Every outer colony that rebels is a military base that we can't resupply a fleet at. Also, the single-minded, hive-like behavior that the demons have thus far exhibited is quite troubling. More than ever, the Hierocracy needs to exert its authority."

Maria hummed as she turned to appreciate Yoshio. "Very impressive, my lord. You _have_ done your homework. That being the case, I'd presume that you realize the necessity of the Inquisition's existence?"

"I suppose."

"The conversations I have with you," Maria said, her long braid swaying side to side, "are much more pleasant than the ones I have with your chaperone, Lieutenant McDonnell."

Yoshio frowned. "Do you two have history?"

"We trained together. Neither of us particularly liked the other."

"She's very dedicated to her status as a _mahou shoujo,_ as well as her beliefs."

"I suppose," Maria said, shrugging.

The three of them stopped at an ornate door that ended the hallway. Behind the door sat the ruler of mankind.

"By the way," Maria said, turning to Diana. "In case you didn't know, you are the one exception to general standards of etiquette. Don't kneel."

As Diana pushed the door open and walked into the office, she felt the familiar feeling of nervousness creep up. It was a comforting familiarity. This was the Prophet-Queen, and no matter how much authority she had over Diana or how nervous she made her feel, she didn't want her dead.

To her left and right, Maria and Yoshio bowed. "Your highness," they said, echoing each other.

Now that she was looking for the similarity, the Prophet-Queen of mankind looked very much like Yoshio, only female. She was young, and Diana knew from research that she was twenty-nine years old. The previous Prophet-Queen, her health ailing in old age, had abdicated the throne years ago to make room for her daughter.

Kaname Haruka, her hands folded below her chin, inclined her head slightly downwards and said, "Rise."

As Yoshio and Maria stood, the Prophet-Queen gave a small smile. "It's good to see you again, Yocchan."

Diana could almost taste Yoshio's discomfort as he squirmed. "Please."

"Very well," Haruka said, the smile sliding off her face. "To business. It's good to know that you exist, Diana. The Goddess' work is certainly very timely."

Diana shifted her weight from left to right. "Personally, I interpret the existence of a Servant as the corollary existence of a threat that the Servant has to beat up in the name of the Goddess. I'd rather not be the Servant if it meant that there were never any demons that needed purging."

"If you stopped existing, the demons would still exist. That's hard reality," Haruka said. "So we need you alive. Please, sit."

Three chairs had already been set in place. Diana smoothly slid into one. It was almost like she was in a business meeting. Up close, the Prophet-Queen was like any other human being, albeit one who carried authority in every act and every word. Upon reflection, Yoshio had passed as ordinary for quite some time as well.

"Is it all right if I address you as 'Diana?'" Haruka asked, leaning forwards. "It'd make me feel more comfortable if I didn't have to address you like I would an Armada general or a regional bishop."

Diana nodded. "I'm fine with it."

"Good. Diana, I'm sure you've been taught the distinction between the Servant and the Prophets. The distinction, however, is rooted in the more impractical parts of Hierocracy doctrine. When the need arises, it often becomes necessary to discard the more unwieldy parts. Traditional philosophy mandates that there be separation between the Hierocracy that disseminates the faith and the military that guards it—but, nonetheless, there is some mixing. Like, for example, a magical girl meant to inspire faith through overwhelming might."

Diana blinked. "You want me to do something with or for the political part of the Hierocracy?"

"Yes. I presume you accept?"

Taken aback, Diana nodded a bit too late. "Of course."

"Splendid," Haruka said, with every muscle in her face remaining static. "The very concept of a Servant appeals to a sense of security. People like to believe that they're in good hands: now, your hands. While it's acceptable for only the Hierocracy and its agents to speak on your behalf, the people, quite simply, need you to speak to them. They need a face and voice to which they can direct their prayers. Addressing the citizens of the Hierocracy might seem difficult—"

"Uh," Diana said, scratching the back of her head. " _Oh no._ I am now forced to confront my one greatest fear, public speaking."

Yoshio made an irritated expression. "Don't give your Prophet-Queen an attitude."

"Last week I became the living representative of the Goddess' power. I can afford attitude."

The Prophet-Queen hummed quietly. "So you're confident, then?"

In her mind's ear, Diana could hear her attitude die a pitiful death. "I think there's a difference between being confidant in an enclosed, nicely-furnished office, and being confidant elsewhere."

"Yes," the Prophet-Queen said, her face now slightly tensed. "I'm afraid I can't do anything for you concerning confidence on the battlefield. I've never seen and will never experience death like that in my entire life. My job as Prophet-Queen is to deal with the fallout."

Hurriedly, Diana shook her head. "It's fine."

"Very well. There will be a speech written for you by tomorrow. I understand that the timeframe for you to make it is quite short."

"My deployment," Diana said, swallowing.

Maria, in her seat, bowed her head deeply. "Your highness,"

"Yes, General D'Arco?"

"I would like to speak about the issue that I brought up previously."

"That's a matter of military affairs. Take it up with the Lord Admirals if you're really that concerned about the issue of whose commands the Servant takes."

It occurred to Diana that, despite claiming to act as a mediator, Maria had said nothing throughout the entire meeting until that point in time. It was almost as if she had been lying in wait until she could make a power grab.

_Oh wait._

"Sorry for interrupting," Diana said, "but is this 'issue' one of whether or not I serve the Inquisition?"

Maria and Haruka turned to her, neither of them saying anything for a moment. Then, Maria bowed her head once more.

"My apologies," she said. "The Inquisition remains under-supplied, under-staffed, stigmatized within the military itself, and put under suspicion throughout the general Hierocracy. The Inquisition is also my home. I would see to reverse these unfounded prejudices."

Diana shifted. "Well, I'm sorry that's the case, but one, I'd rather not be used, and two, the idea of killing other human beings, secessionist, rebel, traitor, heretic, _whatever_ you want to call them, really freaks me out."

"The Servant is to serve the Hierocracy," Haruka said. "Not its shadow. It pains me to say this, General D'Arco, but the darkness is where you and your people belong. It wouldn't do to publically air every instance of Hierocracy weakness, corruption, and betrayal."

Without hesitating, Maria bowed her head in acceptance. "Very well, your Highness. As for the matter of the other transfer, will you accept my proposal?"

"As long as Yoshio consents, then yes."

Yoshio made a confused face. "Excuse me?"

"General D'Arco would like to have one of her girls transfer to the Armada to serve in the same capacity as your escort that Lieutenant McDonnell presently does."

"I—I suppose that I am comfortable with that arrangement," Yoshio said, eyebrows furrowed.

Maria smiled. "Thank you, my lord."

As the Prophet-Queen was about to speak, Yoshio raised a hand to interrupt her. "Your highness, if I may speak…"

Haruka gave a faint smile. "Please, brother."

"Speaking honestly to your loyal servant, how goes the war?"

Diana's eyes flitted to Yoshio's face. His jaw was set and his eyes were cold, staring straight ahead. He sat like he was made of stone. Where was he hiding all that awkward adolescent neuroses now?

Haruka reached across her desk and poured herself a cup of tea. "Would you like some, Yoshio?"

"No, thank you."

"Very well." Slowly, Haruka took a sip of the steaming liquid.

"Our military was caught by surprise. Only now are we truly beginning to react to this disaster. It's been determined that the miasma storms originate from interstellar space. After several centuries of the demons not being a threat, it seems that they're making up for lost time. Mutations are extensive throughout the miasma, thereby giving birth to new and strange monstrosities."

"How many worlds have fallen?" Yoshio asked, voice steady.

"Four. Battles are ongoing in six systems."

"And the dead?"

"They number in the millions."

Diana pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and wiped away imaginary spittle. Her stomach was churning, she felt sick, and it was comforting to have pressure against your mouth.

She had been chosen by the heavens above to fight, and she had thrown a wish into the vast well that was entropy to be brave, but neither the Goddess nor the wish of the Incubators had given her any sort of substantive courage. All she had gotten was a band-aid. She felt cheated.

"Do you lack confidence, brother?" Haruka asked.

Yoshio swallowed. "I believe that, given time, which we have, the might of our military, which, while not yet fully realized, will inevitably come to its full potential, and the strength in the hearts of mankind, which will come with faith in the Goddess, we will survive, and victory will be ours."

"And do you believe those words enough to tell them to repeat them to those seeking your guidance?"

"Without hesitation."

"Then I believe that concludes our business," Haruka said, standing up. Yoshio and Maria mirrored the movement before bowing. It took all of Diana's restraint not to imitate them. "May you go forth with the Goddess in your hearts, and her words on your lips."

-x-

Hours later, Diana was sitting on the top deck of her bunk bed, legs dangling off the side as she swung them back and forth idly. Below her, Christine lay flat against her own mattress, flipping through the pages of some manual for vessel armament. Given the rapid increases in both magical girl recruitment rates and enlisted girls who needed to stay on-base, the military had girls sharing rooms to save space.

"Hey," Diana said. "So Yoshio's probably not going to be shipping out with us."

Christine peeked out from underneath Diana's bed. "Yeah. And?"

"Don't you think it's weird?"

The bunk bed creaked as Christine shifted her weight. "The Hierocracy not sending one of its most prominent figures to the frontlines of a war doesn't sound very strange."

"That's not my point," Diana said. "It's just that it feels off to go on without him."

Christine said nothing as she lay silently in thought. "It _is_ weird. I think I'll miss him."

Diana hummed in assent. "You know, Yoshio and that Inquisition girl were talking about you earlier."

"Were they? What did he say to her?"

"He called you dedicated."

The bed creaked again. As Christine's remained silent, Diana began to register the ticking of the room's clock.

"Hey," Diana said, flipping her body to look down at Christine. "You still there?"

Christine was curled into a ball against the wall, her chin nestled between her knees. "Did he say that?"

"While this is all very adorable, I'm not really seeing how your reaction follows form what Yoshio said."

"I don't think I'm a very dedicated _mahou shoujo._ "

Diana hopped down from her top bunk, landing with a thud against the floor. With a rustle, she scooted her way next to Christine on the lower bunk. "Are you serious? You fucking powered through an entire ship infested with demons. Regardless of what you _feel,_ how you _act_ seems to tell a different story."

Shaking her head, Christine sighed. "It's not that," she said.

"Do you doubt?"

"Doubt what?"

"You know. Being evasive, are you?"

Christine shook her head once more. "It seems hollow," she said, "to believe in what the Goddess stands for because you have no other choice, because otherwise your soul blackens and you fade away. When did belief become a matter of survival? What use is there believing in heroes of justice not because they exist, but because that's the only thing you can strive for?"

"Uh," Diana said, her brow furrowing, "heroes of justice?"

Christine scowled. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No!" Diana said, waving her hands frantically. "I swear. It's just that justice isn't one of the five aspects."

"Oh," Christine said, lips twitching. "Sorry. I guess justice is a family thing for the McDonnells. Really, it's only a fantasy world, one where the good are rewarded and the bad punished. We dream of it, but then we always have to wake up. Like now. I will fight against the demons, and I will fight believing in victory, but realistically, we could all die, and that belief will have amounted to nothing."

Diana abruptly fell silent. Something churned in her stomach. "Did you really have to bring up the extinction issue?"

Christine's eyes widened at Diana's sour glare. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

Chuckling, Diana waved a hand. "Eh, don't worry," she said, smiling lightly. "It's fine. And it's not like the Hierocracy is barely hanging on for survival. I don't think it's warranted to be so pessimistic right out the gates."

"I suppose," Christine said. "Do you have doubts?"

"I don't think the Servant is supposed to doubt," Diana said, looking away.

"But do you?"

A memory of the cathedral's interior, high and lofty, with her gaze pointed upwards into the vast emptiness shifted into Diana's conscious thought.

"Maybe a little."

Christine placed a hand on Diana's shoulder. "Don't worry. Everybody doubts."

"You know, with Yoshio leaving, I hope that we stick together out there," Diana said. "You're the only other _mahou shoujo_ I really know."

Diana yelped as Christine reached out to ruffle her hair. "Hey, I'm not a kid."

"You remind me of my little sister."

"Great! I've always wanted to be compared to some snotty kid!"

Christine chuckled. "It's not a matter of age. You haven't forgotten, right? Even if you're the Servant…"

"I'm still your junior," Diana said, shaking her head.

"It feels almost sacrilegious," Christine said, "to sit next to a religious idol and casually tease her. But, then again, you're only human, aren't you?"

Diana nodded. "I don't think people remember that sometimes. Have you seen how contemporary artists depict figures like Akemi Homura in sculpture and painting? They like to make it seem as if she stood on par with the Goddess herself."

"She _is_ a legend."

"And I'm only a girl."

Christine shrugged. "Too bad."

Sighing, Diana rolled her eyes. "Supportive as always."

"I _am_ supportive."

"Oh? I haven't seen you with _any_ other magical girls."

Christine crossed her arms. "Most of the missions I've been in were internal affairs. Before the demons, militant rebels and heretics were the biggest threat to the people of the Hierocracy. The magical girls that I've worked with moved on to other things and drifted apart. I've never been in a stable team."

"Internal affairs? You mean Inquisitional matters?" Diana asked, her interest piqued.

"They were involved. That's how I got most of my experience with them. They have as many plots and schemes as there are stars in the sky. You should never trust an Inquisitional magical girl. Most of them are infatuated with D'Arco anyways."

Diana laughed at the sudden statement. "Wait, _what?_ "

"She's one of the newest generals in the Inquisition, about as old as me, and I'm pretty young," Christine said. "She united the Inquisition. Even as recent as twenty years ago, the Inquisition was not only content with being paranoid about every single other faction in the Hierocracy, they also had to constantly suspect _themselves_ of potential corruption. It was some sort of infinitely regressive 'who guards the guards' scenario."

Christine paused for a second to look for the right words. "It's also a bit of a stereotype, but the 'darker' magical girls usually end up in the Inquisition. Not many vetted upper-class magical girls, and, uh," she said, her speech continually growing more awkward, "well, for some of them, it's generally considered good sense to keep a good supply of grief cubes on hand at all times."

"They're unstable," Diana said.

"Yes, but never say that in front of one. And, I reiterate, it _is_ a stereotype. Anyways, D'Arco lobbied both outside the Inquisition for more resources and support, both military and psychological, and inside the Inquisition to create a unified front. She's very _charismatic_ in that regard."

"It sounds like a noble enough cause. Why don't you like her?"

"In the entirety of the Inquisition, with all its schemers, she is the most devious one. And no matter how much she does for her own faction, she'll never lend a hand of support to the Armada or the Hearth, mostly because the next week her magical girls will be the ones investigating us for potential corruption."

"Even so," Diana said. "I don't see that justifying unconditional dislike."

"You need to work with her. Then you'll see."

Diana sighed. "Well, it's good to know that the armed forces currently defending humanity from cold and bitter extinction are about as cohesive as shit thrown against a wall."

"You're not going to give the people any sort of faith in the Hierocracy with that sort of attitude," Christine said, shaking her head. "When do you give your address, anyways?"

"Tomorrow."

"Are you nervous?"

"A bit. Not very much."

"Well, you should get some sleep," Christine said. "As should I. We won't have the luxury of such comfortable beds in the outer colonies, or on a ship in the middle of space."

Diana rolled her head against the wall to stare up at the underside of the top bunk. "What's it like?"

"Space?" Christine said, drawing her knees inwards. "Space is cold. It's very large and makes you feel very small."

"That seems intuitively obvious."

"It's never obvious to the people who haven't truly felt what it's like to fight in space. A boarding party plays a crucial role in battle to disrupt enemy rhythm and available firepower, but you'd never guess by casually observing. You are in a tiny craft, praying to the Goddess that your escort ship will cover you, praying that you won't get blown into atoms by a lucky laser cannon. Every single other vessel on the battlefield is several orders of magnitude larger than you. Point defense on a ship is designed to instantly vaporize missiles about your craft's size. On a rational level, you know it works. On an emotional one, you will never feel _smaller._ "

Diana fell silent, the only sound she could hear being Christine's steady breathing.

"But hey," she finally said, "you survived, didn't you?"

Christine's face registered no reaction. "That I did."

-x-

The next morning, Diana exited the military base to meet a small, unassuming transport, with nothing to indicate that it operated under the authority of the most powerful human being alive. She was dressed in uniform.

Christine awoke some time later, along with the rest of the magical girls in Himmelsschloss, and likewise dressed herself in uniform. Accompanying the magical girls were the soldiers of the Armada, the scientists, engineers, and resource directors of the Hearth, and the agents of the Inquisition. All were ordinary human beings. In a different world lost to time, they would have nothing to do with the world of magic.

It was written in the holy texts thusly:

_Those who divide the world in half, one realm or population magical, the other mundane, commit a grave folly. The_ mahou shoujo _is of the same flesh as the_ mortal _, of the same mind, and of the same soul. The inherent suffering of the mundane world harms the_ mahou shoujo's _soul, just as the miasma and demons of the magical world threaten the lives of the_ mortal. _Neither the mortal nor the mahou shoujo will escape their mutual ends._

_But do not despair, my sisters and brothers. Open your eyes to the light of the world and heed the words on my lips. As they share the same end, so too do they share the same salvation. The Goddess carries forth all equally and without prejudice._

Outside the tower of the Goddess' Seat, the military of the Hierocracy arrayed themselves in rows and columns, in countless blocks of men and women, an undifferentiated mass that extended out to the horizon. Elsewhere, billions watched the same scene.

Diana, sitting idly in a waiting chamber, did not think too heavily on what was outside. The implicit theatrics of the affair needled her. At least it wasn't explicitly an act, with makeup and lighting and _pretense._ Her gut cringed at the prospect of something like that.

The Prophet-Queen had only specified one condition to Diana via private communication: she wanted Diana to be in costume as she addressed the people of the Hierocracy.

"They need," she had said, "to see the wings."

Diana exhaled slowly before she began to transform. Then, she pulled the magic out of her in a flash of blue and green, the light blinding her momentarily before she finally became fully clothed.

Now, Diana could _feel,_ on a subconscious level, her wings materialize. She was hardly used to flexing parts of her body that hadn't previously existed, so she was hesitant as she brought one of her wings forward over her shoulder. Warily, Diana extended a hand to touch it. It did not feel like part of her body. _She_ was not extending her own wing; instead, by some strange, bizarre mechanism, wings of a heavenly bird had been magically transplanted onto her back, and all she could do was pull strings. Touching her wings was like touching a wild animal.

They tickled the sensitive skin of her palm as she ran her hand up and down its length.

Behind Diana, the door opened to a loud _creaking_ noise, making her jump in surprise. Her wings furled into her back with a soft _woosh._

A short, tiny girl with bangs obscuring most of her face stood in the doorway, staring at Diana, eyes wide open and cheeks rapidly reddening. Diana stared back, at a loss for an appropriate reaction.

"Hello," she said, desperately trying to ignore how stilted the words sounded slapped on top of several moments of awkward silence.

The other girl stood rooted to the spot. As Diana scanned the girl's figure, she recognized the girl's uniform as Inquisitional.

"I'm lost."

"You're lost in the Goddess' Seat?"

Slowly, the other girl nodded.

"Um, what are you doing here in the first place?" Diana asked.

"I was supposed to meet with the Prophet-Prince at a specified location. I became lost on my way there."

The connection finally became apparent to Diana. "Oh!" she said. "You're the Inquisitional girl who was supposed to escort Yoshio, right?"

Again, the girl nodded. Her eyes were darting around the room like a ping-pong ball. Diana felt a pang of irritation. The least that the girl could do would be to make eye contact.

"You could call him, right?"

Herein, Diana reflected, lay the problem with having the vast bulk of the new recruits for the elite of the Hierocracy's military be comprised of teenaged girls. Competency was not guaranteed. In relative peacetime, this was not a huge issue, given that the Hierocracy could afford to send mostly senior magical girls into combat. Now, when a recruit would see the frontlines within a matter of weeks, training and effective leadership were more important than ever. Diana didn't intend on being the burden. She _couldn't,_ not when she was the Servant.

The girl shook her head. "I'd rather not receive a reprimand for incompetency."

Diana quickly brushed aside the lump of guilt that rudely introduced itself into her thoughts. "It's fine. I can call him. Stay put and he'll be here soon."

"All right."

With a rustle of clothing, the girl sat down beside the door, folding her legs under her. One quick call to Yoshio later, and the Prophet-Prince hurried into the room.

_Prophet-Prince._ The words sounded strange in her mind. She had never been very interested in the intricacies of Hierocratic affairs and had never known that Yoshio was important enough to warrant an official title.

"Keeping your lady waiting, Yoshio?" Diana asked, grinning as Yoshio took a moment to catch his breath. "It seems that the values once held so highly in the days of old have declined even amongst those meant to be the paragons of those very same virtues."

Yoshio stared at her blankly for a second before his brow furrowed. "Shut up."

Putting a hand over her mouth, Diana giggled.

Yoshio shook his head before turning to the other girl. After hesitating a moment, he haltingly extended a hand. "Kaname Yoshio. There is no need to address me as your lord."

The other girl took Yoshio's hand. "Sergeant May Huang."

"As it turns out," Yoshio said, shifting his posture nervously, "that we're late for a rather important meeting."

May blinked. "O-oh. Sorry."

"It's no problem," Yoshio said.

"You know," Diana said, "if you're staying behind on Earth, do you have time to meet up with Christine and me?"

Yoshio blinked in confusion. "I'm sorry?"

"To say goodbye."

"Oh!" Yoshio said. He ducked his gaze downwards before meeting Diana's once again. "Yes. I think I do, but please don't—wait—"

"Goddess above," Diana said, shaking her head. "How neurotic can you get?"

"Hey!"

"So do you have time?"

Yoshio cleared his throat, regaining his composure. "Sadly, my schedule is filled with various ceremonial Hierocratic chores. Though, the point may very well be rendered moot shortly."

"Really?" Diana said, raising an eyebrow. "What are you implying?"

Yoshio shook his head. "I'm late, and you have a speech to deliver. If we meet again, I can explain."

"Sure. Bye, then."

Yoshio nodded in acknowledgement. "Goodbye."

Diana's mind was filled with thoughts of what Yoshio had meant as she strode onto the platform jutting out of the Goddess' Seat. Halfway through her walk she realized that she had to keep the wings out.

_Damn, this really is going to seem theatric._

When they had broadcasted the news of the attacks, the streets of Earth had been as silent as the dead littering the outer colonies. Now, the crowd roared as Diana extended the white wings from her body.

The picture that the Hierocratic speech-writers had Diana paint of the war was much more optimistic than the one that the Prophet-Queen had given behind closed doors. Still, the crowd ate it up, cheering after every two sentences and forcing Diana to pause the speech for almost a minute at times.

If she was to die to defend these vast multitudes of people, would she still fear death? She was the martyr who had to take the fall, but she had not stake amongst the people she was supposed to die for. The prospect of heroism had always seemed vaguely attractive, but once in she wanted out.

Diana swallowed. She remembered Christine, fighting demons aboard a doomed ship. She remembered how Yoshio stood taller when he had to inspire.

"And if anybody doubts how the future might unfold, remember this," Diana said, no longer speaking with the aid of the prompter. "Given time—"

Mankind had been caught off guard, but not flat-footed. Vigilance was a virtue prized throughout the Hierocracy, and whether guns and ships were to be made to combat rebels or demons, they would still be churned out of the millions of factories scattered throughout the Hierocracy.

"—the might of our military—"

A thousand ships, each one large enough to blot out the sun, each one maintained by soldiers of the Armada working tirelessly towards their sacred cause, silently cruised inexorably onwards, driven by their FTL engines, towards their destinations. Awaiting them were the horrors and nightmares that the deep space miasma had spawned. Their task was to cleanse them all with holy fire.

"—and the strength in the hearts of mankind, which will come with faith in the Goddess—"

Throughout hundreds of worlds, and billions of human souls, one thing tied mankind together. They believed, whether with zealous fervor or tainted by skeptic doubt, in a benevolent Goddess that would deliver humanity from despair.

"—we will prevail, and victory will be ours."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So comments are appreciated! I guess that's the AO3 equivalent of the ff.net "read and review please" except this place has actual comment threads??
> 
> Also, when I said I would be doing this weekly, I lied. Probably bi-weekly, or when I'm not lazy.


	3. Greenhorn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as it turns out, italics have been fucked for basically the entire story up until now. 
> 
> and i haven't noticed
> 
> until now. because i'm extremely intelligent, in case anybody was wondering.
> 
> anyway, italics are fixed now, so if you read this work you should be able to discern when somebody's using telepathy, which you probably wouldn't up until now! ahahahaha. yeah. woops.

"Why," Diana said, carefully shaping her lips around the one word. She stared at the man across from her, not moving her gaze, head titled slightly downwards in condescension.

" _Why,"_ she repeated.

Next to her, Christine coughed uncomfortably.

"Please stop," Yoshio said, grimacing. "I have explained my reasoning many times over."

Diana ran a hand through her hair. "Look. _Reverse_ nepotism, wherein somebody uses their familial connections with figures of authority to _fuck themselves_ as opposed to _help themselves_ is just as bad as the normal kind. I mean, if you're exploiting your arbitrary advantages, you might as well do it _intelligently._ "

"She has a point," Christine said.

Yoshio's face drooped, his eyes dropping to the floor. "You too?"

"I'm sorry," Christine said. "I understand your motivations—"

"Wait, fuck, you _do?_ " Diana said, raising an eyebrow. "Because _I_ sure as hell don't."

May, standing silently by the door, glanced furtively at the exit. As Diana continued to argue, she spontaneously began to fidget with her wrist. The black stripes of her uniform stood out from Yoshio's robes and the lighter tones of Diana and Christine's Armada tunics.

Christine set her jaw into a determined line. "Yoshio, it's a matter of safety. I'm not one to contradict the will of the Prophet-Queen, but from an objective standpoint, this is not the best idea."

"Not the best idea," Diana said, "the same way giving a recently concussed toddler the controls to a ship is 'not the best idea.'"

" _Please—"_

" _What if you die?"_

Silence met Diana's question. Looking around, she threw her hands in the air. "Hey! That was a serious question. This is the most dangerous place in the entire galaxy. There are, I don't know, three miasma fronts within two weeks' jump speed from this system. So let's say you get caught up in what _will be_ an inevitable battle, and let's say you bite it. _What then?_ "

"The people of the Hierocracy suffer a blow to their morale. Little in terms of functionality is lost."

Diana placed a hand over her face. "Yoshio, you are the brother of the _ruler of humanity._ Underselling yourself like that is fucking stupid."

"The Hierocracy will carry on after I am dead, if I die," Yoshio said. "I do not find the idea of shaping the direction of my life over the possibility of its death very appealing."

"How did you convince the Prophet-Queen, anyways?" Diana asked. "She seemed very level-headed, like the type of person who wouldn't be prone to being complicit in this idiocy."

"Officially, I am, through my presence, to apply political pressure on the rebels in the sector in order to better facilitate the defense of the Hierocracy's holdings."

"Yeah, and we both know that's bullshit," Diana said. "The actual reason?"

"She'd rather have a brother that can be proud of himself," Yoshio said, "rather than an invalid, wasting away in the gilded halls of Himmelsschloss, useful to nobody as the galaxy burns around him. I'd like to think that my sister loves me, and that she fears for my safety, but that her fear is outweighed by her respect for me."

Diana paused for a moment to digest Yoshio's words before feeling the irritation rush out of her. She couldn't stay angry for very long.

"Everyone on the ship shares the same risks as Yoshio," Christine said.

"And regardless of those risks," Yoshio said, "I have the Servant to guard me. Also, I heard that there was some hyper-competent magical girl on board who they said was pretty good at hitting things with a sword."

Christine blushed as the corners of Diana's mouth twitched. "Congratulations, Yoshio, you made a joke," she said, before glancing over Yoshio's shoulder to make eye contact with May. "I _promise_ that we can be intelligent, don't worry. So, you'll be joining our pseudo-team?"

"Y-yeah," May said, jumping at the sudden attention.

Christine turned to examine May, eyes lingering over the Inquisitional decorations on her uniform. She seemed too polite to overtly treat May as a curious specimen, yet too curious to deny her intrigue. "You're Inquisition, right?"

Lifting a hand to her mouth, Diana had to stifle a snort at the entirely useless question. At the sudden interest in May's previous loyalties, May turned her face slightly away from Christine, her long bangs now obscuring portions of her face.

"Yes."

"How was it?" Christine asked.

As May continually fidgeted with her hands, crossing her arms defensively across her torso, Diana couldn't help but pity the girl somewhat. She had a small, slender frame, and even with Christine standing across the relatively spacious officer's lounge the difference in height and bulk was obvious. She felt sympathetically embarrassed at Christine's oblivious predation of May. Girls born into noble families and raised to become _mahou shoujo_ never had to work their way through the normal channels of education, which, as Diana's experience within the military grew, occasionally became obvious in moments like these.

May's eyes darted between the floor and Christine's expectant gaze. It was hard to discern her emotions or thoughts through the hair covering her face. All Diana could tell with certainty was that she was uncomfortable.

"I don't know," she finally answered.

Christine furrowed her brow. "Uh, well, what did you do, how were the other magical girls, or did anything happen?" she asked, stumbling over her words a bit.

At Christine's insistent questioning, May shrugged. Diana was almost impressed at the motion. It was one of the most noncommittal, non-functional, uselessly ambiguous gestures she had ever seen. She briefly considered officially recording it as such within her mind for future reference. She also briefly considered vocalizing her thoughts.

Somehow, though, she had the inescapable feeling that acting as such would only turn out poorly and make her feel guilty.

"Why do you want to know so badly?"

Crossing her arms across her chest, Christine frowned. "I don't. I'm just curious."

Diana and Yoshio shared glances of concern and worry. The confrontational nature of the conversation quickly rendered both of them nervous.

"Well, what do you _think_ happens in the Inquisition?" May asked. Her voice was soft, and to Diana, almost fragile, but the inherent sharpness of the words was inescapable. It was like shattered glass.

Guilt flashed across Christine's face just as fast as she tried to hide it. Diana almost wanted to stand up and protest the inevitability of the train wreck that was about to occur.

Steeling her jaw, Christine recovered. "You kill heretics."

"Well, there you go," May said. Diana noticed that she was practically picking at her hands by now. Her eyes circled around the room, setting on anything but Christine's face. "And _why_ —"

A shadow passed over May's face, doubling the physical shadows cast by her hair. Her breathing became more rapid as the words caught in her throat. "Why would you _care?_ Whatever happens in the Inquisition, why would someone with a family that can get her into the _real_ military care? It's never going to happen to you."

Without saying anything more, May stalked out of the room. Christine made an abortive motion to follow her before Diana pulled on her sleeve to sit her back down.

Christine's eyes were pleading for vindication. "I was just asking—"

"Yeah," Diana said, "but we all need to learn when to shut up."

"It's of no consequence," Yoshio said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Christine nodded. "I'll apologize later."

"Still," Diana said, "that was pretty unnecessary on her part. Oh well. No matter where you are, I guess being socially inept remains that same, awkward constant. You two would know, right?"

Diana sniggered at the two simultaneous glares she received. "Oh, come on. Both of youspent all of your childhood in Himmelsschloss and belong to a noble family. If it came down to speaking about normal things, an AI could probably simulate better responses than you people."

Sighing, Yoshio shook his head. "Still," he said, "if May is going to accompany me, I'd like to know whatever events happened in the Inquisition that she doesn't want to talk about."

"It'd be a relatively simple matter to just ask one of the Inquisitional officers on board for a record," Christine said. "We have some right to know, I think."

"You guys are assuming that something _did_ happen in the first place, aren't you?" Diana said. "She might just not enjoy having the details of her past pried into. Something might have happened before she joined the Inquisition, or maybe even before she contracted in the first place. I'm new to this business of being a magical girl, but I'm aware of the most _basic_ trends. If you don't contract with the Incubators because it's part of the family practice or because of a religious calling, you contract because your life sucks and wishes go a long way in fixing that. Surrounded by two people who've come from the very top of humanity, along with _me_ , who's pretty much the very definition of 'lucked out,' it'd make sense that she'd feel uncomfortable."

Diana paused to scratch at her head, ignoring the slightly bemused stare that Yoshio was giving her. To Christine's credit, she didn't look as lost. "Or maybe I'm just trying to fit in her into a convenient narrative so I don't have to actually speak with her to understand her. The point is that we should, in general, be smart about how we interact with her. I, personally, am not going to extend any helping hands that she doesn't want to take."

Diana glanced outside the lounge's view screen, at the flat, undifferentiated blackness of the space beyond, and the dull red sphere that was the moon they were orbiting. The celestial bodies seemed to stand still, suspended statically in the invisible firmament, incapable of ever being disturbed.

But Diana knew that on the holographic star maps projected on the bridge, a red dot that denoted an area of concentrated miasma was located within striking distance of the system, and that battle was at hand.

-x-

A couple hours later, Diana was sprawled against a hard, wooden chair in her personal quarters. Once again, she found herself sharing a room with Christine. In her hands rested a hot, steaming mug of hot chocolate, which Diana held close to her face, savoring the heat that radiated across her cheek. Energy was a scarce resource on a warship, and space was very cold.

Diana's eyes were glazed and unfocused as she idly blew air across the surface of her beverage. Practically, she knew that she was prepared to fight. As a trained magical girl, she would always have some idea of what to do. But instinctually, her lack of experience dug in at the back of her mind.

It was easier to drift off into semi-consciousness than it was to remain awake and alert, free to contemplate the prospect of the inevitable battle that was looming.

The materialized soul gem lying next to her on the desk pulsed with a gentle, green-blue light. Diana's mind, made drowsy by the hot chocolate, was occupied with thoughts of how good the warmth of the liquid felt against her throat, and how sweet it tasted.

On the _Faithful Soldier,_ as opposed to the civilian setting of Himmelsschloss, Diana was surrounded by Armada personnel. In some specific contexts, the military was more religious than the Hierocracy that it served. The faith of the Hierocracy was diluted through the politics that government necessarily entailed. While there were no clergymen amongst the military to spread the word of the Goddess, and while doubt ran rampant through the soldiers who had to confront despair and evil face-to-face, the military was the only group in the right position to fully appreciate the power of the Goddess. As servants of the Hierocracy, the military was guided by divine mandate. While the Hierocracy _was_ religion, the military was religion's will. Their cannons were the holy fire of the Goddess, and they named their capital ships after the five pillars.

As Diana walked through the halls of the ship, she could feel the attention of men and women, all of them more experienced than her, turn to examine her. They did not salute her, as they outranked her, but nobody could mistake the reverence in their eyes for anything else.

Being a coward had simply been removed from her list of viable options. If she fled with the hopes of a hundred billion souls still resting on her back, she would be absolute trash. Diana couldn't even think of a sarcastic way to frame it.

The sound of the door sliding open startled Diana into almost spilling her hot chocolate, making her gasp in surprise as the scalding liquid brushed against her fingers. A quiet squeal from the door answered Diana's own cry.

"May?"

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," May said, narrowly dodging the door as it slid shut again.

"They rarely do," Diana said, putting her hot chocolate down. "Do you want something?"

May took a deep breath. "I was looking for Lieutenant McDonnell."

Diana shrugged. "Well, I don't know where she is. It's obviously not here. Sorry. Why're you looking for her?"

"It's nothing."

"Oh. Well, this is the part where I just stop asking questions, right?"

There was a sharp intake of breath as May narrowed her eyes at Diana. "I d-don't really enjoy being made fun of."

Diana had not been expecting the hostile response. Although she wasn't sure, she was reasonably certain that being the Servant carried with it an implicit degree of unspoken authority, which May didn't seem to have many problems beyond pre-existing shyness with disrespecting. She took care not to act surprised, though. Letting May know that Diana's image of her was weak would essentially broadcast pity, and that was one insult Diana was unwilling to throw. "Look, I'm sorry. I was just curious. I can't pretend to have known Christine for very long, given that I've only been involved in this magical girl business since the war started. I guess if you're being generous you could call me her acquaintance, which hardly justifies me inquiring into her personal affairs. So I guess the point is that you don't have to answer if you don't want—"

"I'm going to apologize to her."

Diana blinked, her mouth closing as the momentum of her rambling speech died. " _Are_ you?"

May squirmed against the wall. "Y-yes."

"She _was_ asking pretty stupid questions. Why do you feel the need to apologize?"

Pressing her lips together, May shook her head. "That's not the point."

"I guess I'm more surprised because you seemed pretty pissed off when you were speaking to her."

May bowed her head. "I was."

"And you're specifically seeking her out to apologize not even twenty-four hours later?"

"I-I just want her to know that I don't hate her or anything. Because I don't," May said, her voice soft and slow. "Is that all right?"

Diana blinked again. "Yeah."

The obvious thing for her to say was, "I had you pegged wrong," but, to Diana, it would add nothing to the conversation besides the advertisement of her own ignorance.

May wasn't saying anything, but she wasn't leaving the room, either. Quickly looking for a solution, Diana blurted out the first thing that came to her mind: "I actually knew that you'd be transferring to escort Yoshio before we first met."

"I-I'm sorry?"

"Not _you_ specifically, but the Prophet-Queen was talking about it. Maria D'Arco was specifically asking the Prophet-Queen for a transfer, so I guess it was important."

May's cheeks flushed. "S-she was?"

"Yeah. That's how I knew who you were when you got lost."

Even more blood rushed to May's face. "I-I'm sorry that I was such a bother that time."

Diana snorted. "Oh no, you got lost in what is actually the largest building in Himmelsschloss. It wasn't a problem."

"Oh," May said, regaining her composure. "That's, uh, good."

"Anyways," Diana said, "and let me preface this by saying that I honestly don't have a fucking clue what the answer to this question might be, what's it like in the Inquisition? You don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to."

May made eyes towards an empty chair. "May I sit?"

"Of course."

The chair didn't make a sound as May lowered her tiny body on it. "Before General D'Arco, the Inquisition was a terrible place to make friends. We recruited the vast majority of our magical girls from ethnic colonies, mostly because it's much easier for a girl from a Lyuidan settlement to understand the political workings of that settlement than it is for a girl who's spent her entire life being waited on in Himmelsschloss."

"So if everyone's from a different colony, you pretty much hated each other?"

"Yes. There was also the risk of the Inquisition's ultimate failure: corruption within the holy justice itself. Because practically nobody was from anyplace near Earth, the risk of heretical beliefs amongst the girls was that much higher. But it was just an excuse for us to be suspicious and hateful towards each other."

May's eyes were focused very firmly on the floor, and her voice lacked much intonation, like she was reciting from a textbook.

"And how did D'Arco change all of that?"

" _General_ D'Arco," May said, "made the other Inquisitional Generals play nice. Nobody is quite sure how. Maybe you should ask her yourself?"

Diana rolled her eyes. "It would be easier to ask a fortune cookie. I met this other Inquisitional girl with General D'Arco back in Himmelsschloss. Uh, Julia, I think? Who is she?"

May nodded. "Julia is General D'Arco's right hand woman. The two of them are inseparable. I don't know how they met."

"Maybe I should ask her myself."

"Ha ha," May said, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards.

"Anyways," Diana said, "I'm fresh enough meat that you don't really have to worry about me having a clue about which prejudices are trending amongst Armada magical girls. And really, back in school, I didn't care who had family close or far away from Earth. Don't mistake it for me being some sort of fucking saint, though. I just didn't give enough of a shit about politics or cultural feuds."

"I think that generally makes people nicer."

"Well, I default to being a bitch to people that I've just met," Diana said, "so it balances out."

May was silent for some time as she played with the bangs covering her eyes. When she finally spoke, her voice was the most level that Diana had ever heard it. "Don't be so hard on yourself, okay?"

"I'm _not_ hard on myself."

May shook her head. "People like you, or like the Prophet, are always too hard on themselves."

"You're comparing me with _Yoshio?_ You think I'm anywhere near close to him? Have you heard that guy talk about himself?"

"No," May said, "but I can still tell. Nine times out of ten, he's carrying himself in that way. He wants to curl up like a pillbug. I don't think he deserves to feel like that. You don't either, Diana."

"Am _I_ acting like a pillbug?"

May glanced back down to the floor. "I-I guess not. I'll go look for Lieutenant McDonnell, then."

Silently, May rose from her seat and headed towards the door. She was two, three paces away when Diana stood as well and said, "Hey."

She made sure that she was smiling at May. She didn't remember smiling at her when they first met, which, in retrospect, made her feel bad about herself. For a moment, Diana wondered whether or not guilt was a sufficient motivation for benevolence. Apart from guilt, what else was there? If benevolence did not make a person feel good, would there otherwise be any motive to do good? And if there was not, would guilt not be sufficient—

Diana hurriedly terminated her line of thought as she extended a hand. "Welcome to team Prophet."

After a moment of hesitation, May reciprocated the gesture. Her grasp on Diana's hand felt like slack rope. "Team Prophet?"

"Hell, all Christine and I've been doing for the couple weeks this war has lasted has been escorting Yoshio the fuck around. He goes to Earth, we go to Earth. We go to the middle of deep space to fight demonic horrors spawned from entirely new strains of miasma, which themselves are in turn borne from the deepest, darkest recesses of human suffering, hate, and despair? Whaddaya fucking know, Yoshio's right there with us, with some flimsy bullshit as an excuse."

At Diana's words, May's lips parted a fraction of an inch. Just as they were about to form words, though, her eyes darted away from Diana's face in indecision, and she closed her mouth.

"What is it?"

"I-it's nothing," May said. "Some Inquisitional business. You brought it up earlier."

Diana looked at May in confusion. "I did?"

"Yes. Yoshio's, um, you called it, er, his 'official purpose' is actually rather important. The heretics, I mean."

"What _do_ you mean?"

"Er, the nearest fort planet is too far away to support a fleet in this frontier sector for very long. I _think_ that the Armada wanted to build bases on Feraxis, the most developed planet in the outer sector, so that they'd be able to sustain a prolonged campaign in the area."

May frowned. "But, of course, the Armada can be, mm, _dumb,_ so, uh, I have to go to them and say, 'By the way, huge swaths of Feraxis are under heretical control. Could you please give us some firepower to deal with them?' And I was really nice about it, too! But they said no. So General D'Arco was trying to get support for a campaign to get the heretics off Feraxis, but _then_ the demons came and suddenly everyone was concerned that we were all going to _die,_ so, yeah, now it turns out we _really need_ to deal with the heretics."

May's hand crept nervously into her hair. "That, uh, make sense?"

"So," Diana said, "what does this have to do with _Yoshio?"_

"Ah," May said, her eyes widening a bit in surprise. "I'm—I'm not very sure. Prophet-Princes don't really have much of a precedent for stopping heretical movements."

Diana rolled his eyes. "You mean he can't do shit."

Discomfort radiated from May. "Eh, no, but please don't tell him I said that. I'm sure he wants very much to do _something._ "

"Don't worry, I won't."

Slowly, the traces of a smile began to peek through May's face. "Well, then, it was nice talking to you in a, uh, less embarrassing context."

Diana laughed. "You too. See you later, then."

The door slid shut behind May. A second later, Diana planted her face in her hand.

 _Fuck,_ "Team Prophet" sounded so much cheesier in retrospect.

Grumbling under her breath, Diana took a sip of her now-lukewarm hot chocolate. The ship was still very cold.

-x-

It was later—how much later, Diana wasn't very sure, because she now measured time by waiting, in a metal box with no sun and a body that didn't necessarily need to sleep eight hours a day anymore, for the demons to come and the battle to begin—when Diana was looking for something to draw, maybe a viewport to the depths of outer space, or a bit of intricate machinery, when she ran into the Hearth member again.

"Yo!" a familiar voice behind Diana called out. Diana had been walking through one of the ship's many corridors. Some of them, dead-ends, had been designed just to confuse and trap potential boarders.

Diana turned around in surprise. Akira, an easy smile across her face, waved at Diana. She was taking disproportionately long strides towards her, like there were springs within her legs.

"Hey," Diana said, finding herself returning Akira's smile. "What're you doing here?"

"Same thing you are, Servant," Akira said, sticking a tongue out. "Killing demons. Well, I'm taking more of a backseat role, but do you think you guys would have a shot at waging war without the help of the poor neglected support characters?"

Diana snorted. "To be honest, you don't seem fitted to a background role."

"Well, too bad," Akira said. "So, I heard the Prophet-Prince is on this ship as well? Is that part of the reason why you're here?"

"Surprisingly, no," Diana said. "I'm pretty sure Yoshio was supposed to stay behind in Himmelsschloss. But lo and fucking behold, that idiot seems to have no qualms about putting his life into grave and mortal danger, and here he is. And here _you_ are. Pretty big coincidence, isn't it?"

Akira gave a noncommittal shrug. "Who knows. I mean, you don't know anybody _else_ aboard this ship, do you? Statistically, it's not that far-fetched, especially considering that this is _the_ place to be if you want to kill demons."

"I suppose," Diana said. "Either way, it's good to see you here."

"Hey, you're being nice!"

"Piss off."

Akira laughed, throwing her head back as her shiny black hair played out behind her head. Grinning, she pushed Diana in the shoulder. "Hey, you're working with Christine, right?"

"Yeah. Do you know her?"

"Mm, sorta," Akira said. "We were part of the same training group."

"Wait—with D'Arco?"

"Yeah. It was pretty funny watching her and Christine argue," Akira said, chuckling. "I'm probably going to go over and catch up with her later."

"Cool," Diana said. "So, what _do_ you do, exactly?"

In her free time, Diana had been doing research on how the Hierocracy's army operated. She had been promoted to a rank unbefitting her actual experience—she hadn't seen more than a day of combat yet she was a Lieutenant—so what the Hierocracy basic training videos had shown her wasn't anywhere near sufficient education. The majority of her efforts had been devoted to the Armada. Now she knew that normal humans dominated most bridge positions—except for the captaincy—gunnery positions, and a few specific combat roles, like snipers. Magical girls made the majority of elite combat teams, though there were a few normal humans scattered throughout the roster. Nearly all the Armada captains were magical girls: having a religious figure serve as your commander did wonders for morale. Also confirming what she had known all along, the Armada and the Inquisition had long-standing rivalries. Furthermore, the Armada was the most powerful body in the galaxy, capable of, by the estimates of military experts, collectively glassing every known habitable planet in existence while only meeting minimal existence.

She didn't know shit about the Hearth, though.

Akira smiled at Diana's questions. "You're interested?"

"Yeah. Science can be pretty cool."

Smiling even wider, Akira gave Diana a deep bow. "Thank you very much," she said. "Truth be told, not that many people care all that much about us."

"Hopefully, I am not 'most people.' That would be indescribably boring."

Akira threw an arm over Diana's shoulder. "So, you wanna see?"

"Go for it."

With a twirl, Akira spun Diana around and began to lead her through the depths of the ship. Akira supplied an incessant stream of trivia about the design specifications of the vessel as they walked deeper and deeper within the structure. The knowledge that the ship was only a destroyer was quite the humbling revelation. Diana had never seen a battleship in her life; the one that arrived to save Genesis had appeared hours after her escape. A destroyer was already big enough.

And, extrapolating from the sizes of Armada ships, how large were the demons? Mutations in the miasma were hardly unexpected, given their precedence. The War—the _First_ War had been a miasma mutation vastly multiplying demon breeding rates while simultaneously allowing the miasma to affect the real world, thereby revealing the demons to ordinary people. Human military had quickly discovered that demon firepower uncannily mirrored the humans' own. So, that being the case—what did the largest demons look like now?

Eventually, they came across a series of checkpoints reinforced with what seemed to be _very_ sturdy blast doors. After Akira confirmed her identity, the doors opened with the hum of unlocking invisible force fields.

"It appears that whatever you're showing me is serious business," Diana said, raising an eyebrow.

"The engine is indeed quite serious business. Guess what dies if it dies?"

Diana privately hoped that the engine's visuals instilled some sort of confidence within her. Having the destroyer's fate be put into some shitty-looking piece of machinery would be too depressing.

As they passed other Hearth members, Akira smiled, waved, and greeted each one by name. The most Diana had ever seen Christine give was a respectful nod. For a moment, she wondered if bad luck had conspired to make it so that Christine had never formed any lasting ties with her comrades, or if it was only inevitable.

Akira made an elaborate flourish as she cleared the final checkpoint and the doors slid open. The inside of the engine room had a couple engineers milling about, checking screens and switches. The engine itself sat in the middle of the room, taking up an absurd amount of space. To Diana, it looked to be a massive hunk of metal, parts of which occasionally shifted and clicked, seemingly assembled at random. The engine room itself was large enough, almost as voluminous as the cathedral back on Himmelsschloss.

"This is actually only one of several drives," Akira said. "Bending space-time, as it turns out, takes a lot of energy, more than one drive can supply. Whoulda thought, huh?"

Diana took in the entirety of the engine, each part seamlessly interlocking with another to what seemed to be absolutely no end. Shaking her head, she gestured at the machine. "Do you… _get_ it?"

"Parts of it. Not all of it, of course. Thousands of Hearth scientists worked on developing that thing. Thousands more tested it, thousands more maintain it. Pretty cool, huh?"

Akira's voice had lost its usual bouncy lilt. Diana looked back at the hunk of metal. It was hard to imagine anyone being so emotionally invested in its existence. Yet here Akira was, and Diana wasn't one to argue with it.

For a moment, Diana imagined that she was outside the ship, just a set of eyes floating in the view from nowhere, looking down upon the vessel. Was there art in the machine? Was there beauty? How did the lifeless piece of metal move? To what reaches had it explored? Where was the beating heart?

For a moment, Diana's subconscious stopped thinking about the demons, and how they were coming for her. She didn't think about how scared she was of the path that she had found herself on. She was looking at cool shit with a friend, and the demons seemed so far away.

"Yeah, it is pretty awesome."

"Sometimes, the thing makes me feel small," Akira said. "Everybody and everything is just so far apart, and we need this engine to even have any hope of speaking to each other. And thousands of people worked on this thing, and if any one of them didn't—well, it wouldn't matter, someone else would just take their place."

What good was individualism when placed in the context of the vast reaches of the galaxy?

"I don't think anyone who's ever lived _really_ mattered to more than a couple people, let alone thousands," Diana said. "Who cares about someone light years away that you'll never meet? I'd be lying to myself if I said that the abstract concept of a human life had any sort of true meaning to me. We don't deal well with scope. As far as the people and places that _actually_ matter to us are concerned, we just get by as well as we can."

"You think so?"

"Yeah," Diana said, nodding.

"Do you think that I can matter to you?"

Diana thought about all the clichés regarding war and attachments. There existed countless stories of the jaded soldier, spurned by the cruel hand of fate, growing more and more averse to relationships that could be torn apart at any moment.

Well, Diana was still a rookie, wasn't she?

"You seem like you need friends," Akira said. "Most new girls do. When I first became a _mahou shoujo,_ I was used to being number one as far as my parents were concerned. Joining and realizing the actual scope of the military—of how large the Hierocracy had really grown—was scary. Entire planets can burn in holy wars and people in Himmelsschloss forget about it after a week. One person hardly mattered. The Hearth kept me from the gloominess. I had friends, and I mattered to them, and they mattered to me."

"We," Diana said, realizing abruptly that she had stopped trying to line her words with wit or double meanings some time ago, " _are_ friends, right?"

"Of course!" Akira said, smiling. "Unless you're seriously unpleasant or just trying real hard, becoming friends just sorta happens with magical girls. We stick together, right?"

Diana thought about Christine, and how, after one chance meeting on Genesis, the two of them had hardly been apart for more than a couple hours. Amongst the magical girls of the Hierocracy, there existed at least one single, unifying force. The Goddess tied very strong bonds.

Fear still burned like a glowing ember, full of dirty smoke, in the darkest, most primal portions of Diana's soul. But it didn't burn, and she could ignore it. She would have to try very hard to give much thought to fear when Akira was running her mouth off.

"Yeah," Diana said. "You're right."

-x-

Diana had to bite down hard on her lip to stop her from shouting in surprise when she finally noticed the Incubator walking next to her.

 _Okay, I want to make_ something _super-clear,_ Diana thought, keeping the telepathy private between her and the Incubator. _You announce your presence. I don't give a fuck if you understand emotions about as well as I understand advanced quantum physics, you still have to respect things like 'surprise'. Got it?_

The Incubator tilted its plush doll head. _I don't believe we've met._

_Oh, for fuck's sake. Who are you, then?_

_I'm Kyubey!_

Diana almost choked. _Please tell me that I didn't just badmouth a historical icon._

 _Don't worry about it, Diana!_ Kyubey said, swishing its tail back and forth. _I was just here to visit Yoshio-chan, anyways._

_You know Yoshio?_

_I have since childhood. He's grown distant lately, though. I don't understand why._

It took an appreciable amount of willpower on Diana's part to stay her mental tongue. _So, who was the Incubator I met on Genesis?_

 _That was Mephis,_ Kyubey said. _Mephis is new to the job. I'm helping out._

 _Uh-huh,_ Diana said. _Where is Yoshio, anyways? I haven't seen him for a while._

Kyubey turned its head towards Diana, the ever-present smile of the Incubators staring her in the face. _Just follow me._

Diana tried not to let the Incubator's seemingly omniscient knowledge of Yoshio's whereabouts perturb her. She failed.

When they found Yoshio, he was in an abandoned lounge room, hunched over a tactical holographic projection. Christine was sitting next to him, not looking at the map, but instead occasionally sneaking glances at Yoshio's concentrated expression.

"Hey," Diana said, her words pulling Yoshio out of his studies. As he turned to regard her, his eyes were immediately drawn to the Incubator at Diana's feet.

"Hello, Diana," he said, his voice strained. Then, he said using telepathy, _Hello, Kyubey._

_Long time no see, Yoshio-chan._

_Indeed,_ Yoshio said. The expression on Yoshio's face unsettled Diana. It wasn't fierce or hostile; Yoshio's breathing remained level and his posture passive. But his eyes were hard and cold, communicating nothing but guardedness, like he was intentionally armoring himself against the Incubator.

 _I'd love to catch up,_ Kyubey said, _though now seems to be an inappropriate time. Maybe later? I've always enjoyed speaking with you Prophets._

Yoshio gave one short, barely functional nod. _Then, if you have nothing else to say—_

 _I'll excuse myself._ Without a tiny squeak, Kyubey turned around and walked out.

"He's a bit better at expressing himself than the other one," Diana said.

"Not 'he.' It," Yoshio said, narrowing his eyes at the spot where Kyubey had walked out.

"Fuck, what did Kyubey do to you?"

Yoshio shook his head. "Nothing that it would ever know. The mystery secretly drives the Incubators insane. It's quite amusing."

"…okay," Diana said. "I haven't got a fucking clue what you're talking about, but that's cool. What're you doing?"

"Thinking."

Christine shook her head. "He has been sitting like this for quite some time."

"Scouting drones have reported that the demons are closing in. I expect that you two will receive orders to prepare for combat within three hours."

Yoshio's back was stiff and rigid, and he spoke one step above a monotone, unnatural pauses finding their way in between his words. The glances that Christine was shooting his way grew concerned.

"You're obsessing over this, you know?" Diana said. "Welp, guess it's time to put another penny in the 'Yoshio does something unhealthy' jar."

Yoshio's robes rustled as his posture relaxed marginally. "My obsession is not without justification," he said, the words enunciated more naturally now. "In wondrous defiance of traditional doctrine, a Lord Admiral is _not_ in command of this fleet. I estimate it will take at least a month before the fort sectors become willing to give up their pocket fleets and command staff for the frontlines, less time if Himmelsschloss applies political and economic pressure."

Diana snorted. "Isn't imperial bureaucracy wonderful?"

"Say all you want," Christine said, shaking her head, "you didn't have to _live_ in it like we did."

Shaking his head, Yoshio sighed. "At any rate, instead of being defended by any of the four largest fleets in the Hierocracy, all of which have built experience and tradition over the last century, we're stuck with a fleet comprising the defense garrisons of loyal planets in this sector. We're too fresh. Take the captain of this ship, for instance. Captain Chu-ko Liang is one of the few male captains in the Armada, which means that he had to work twice as hard to earn half the credit. He is clearly competent. But he has no experience. Competency isn't sufficient when the existence of the human race is on the line."

"I believe he deserves a chance," Christine said. "The Lord Admirals can't be everywhere at once. We need new blood, and eventually, someone will need to command the fifth dreadnought."

Yoshio turned to look at Christine. "That's a rather optimistic sentiment."

"Everybody aspires to be a hero and a martyr. Captain Liang deserves his chance."

Despite the uplifting diction, Diana noticed the sharp undercurrent in Christine's words. She remembered her confession about heroism, back on Earth. It had been easy to admit that reality wasn't amenable to legendary figures of justice when they had both been safe and comfortable. Now Diana just wanted to push the thoughts out of her head.

Yoshio thought for a moment before a wry, thin ghost of a smile found its way onto his face. "Ah," he said. "Captain Liang must be aware that I'm aboard the ship. If it is as you say, then Captain Liang does indeed have the burden of protecting the Prophet-Prince. This _is_ his chance. Meanwhile, I suppose that I can sit here and serve as the precious cargo."

Leaning forwards, Christine crossed her arms. "Do you _want_ to stay sitting down?"

Yoshio flinched. To Diana, his composure seemed to be made of eggshells. "No."

"Well, clearly not," Christine said. "You flew all the way out here, right? Truthfully, _I_ first saw you as a burden. I had never met you, and the only things I knew of you were from a file. You were some package I had to deliver safely from Genesis—some spoiled brat who had ran away from home, and would fade into obscurity after the next generation of Prophets was born. And I was wrong. You picked up a weapon and fought. You have more motivation and determination than many magical girls I've met."

Diana had seen Christine smile before, but she had been teasing then. She didn't know that Christine could smile so softly. "It's very admirable. Either way, you should stop viewing yourself as the object of care. You can be more. Don't you trust the words on my lips?"

What remained of Yoshio's composure shattered as his cheeks flushed bright red. Diana had to suppress a snicker.

The PA system blared on, startling all of them. Messages were delivered individually to each person's communicator, giving them instructions.

Diana tensed as the voice in her head gave her a rendezvous point to meet at by 730, starship time. They were being deployed.

Yoshio's face was scrunched up in confusion. "They want me on the bridge."

At Diana and Christine's equally befuddled expressions, Yoshio shrugged. "Well, at least the ship is mobilizing sooner rather than later."

There was an abrupt silence as the three of them realized, at around the same time, that they were, for the first time since Genesis, facing a situation where they had a very non-negligible chance of dying. Yoshio opened and closed his mouth several times, each time choking on his words. _Do you need a glass of water,_ Diana wanted to ask.

"Hey," she said. "We're going to be all right. That's what you said, back on Genesis."

Yoshio nodded quickly. "Thank you—" he said, looking at Christine first before hurriedly making eye contact with Diana, "—both."

"The same," Christine said, "Yoshio."

"I-I've made clear," Yoshio said, speaking too quickly and stumbling over his words, "about how I feel about my past life in Himmelsschloss. I made friends, yes, but that was in the context of a meaningless existence. You two mean much more to me than anything back in Himmelsschloss could, save for my two sisters. Do you know what I'm saying?"

Christine nodded. "We're comrades. It's natural."

"People I knew back at school grew kinda distant when I became the Servant," Diana said. "I wonder why. That means that you two are the closest non-familial contacts I have. Anyways, it'd suck if any of us died, so, um, let's not. Cool? Cool."

Diana bit her tongue to prevent herself from rambling any further. Fear was making her embarrass herself, which was only marginally less mortifying than the fear itself. Neither Christine nor Yoshio seemed to care much, though.

"Then may the Goddess protect you both," Yoshio said. "We should go."

As Diana glanced at Christine, she saw the tiny worm of sadness crawl its way into her eyes. Both girls knew, but Diana was trying her best to ignore, that no matter what they _said,_ what would _happen_ was another matter entirely.

If she died with friends, the only difference was that she would be less miserable, but still dead.

_No. The scripture says that you are the Servant of the Goddess, avatar of her holy will, manifestation of her divine might, herald of her coming salvation._

The words came to Diana's head easily. She had read the scripture before, and the words had been buried under memory before being dragged back out to the surface.

"Good-bye, Yoshio," Christine said.

Yoshio's back stiffened. With his left hand, he reached over to his right and fidgeted with his ring. The ring, Diana remembered, had served to dispel her doubts about Yoshio. "We'll meet after the battle is finished. Until then, farewell."

"See ya," Diana said.

As Diana watched Yoshio turn and leave, she couldn't help but appreciate that this was one of those times when Yoshio's back was straight, and his elbows not bent to shield his body from imaginary foes.

-x-

May started in surprise as she saw Christine enter their rendezvous point with Diana. Blushing faintly, she locked eyes with Christine and opened her mouth as if to speak before being seized with trepidation and clamping her lips back together. Christine gave her a strange look in response, which only made her blush harder. From the awkward exchange, Diana could only surmise that May hadn't had the opportunity to apologize yet.

"I'm surprised to see you here," Christine said. "Does the Inquisition have business in frontline combat against demons?"

After hesitating for a moment, May gave a curt nod. "Y-yes. General D'Arco wants intelligence for the intelligence agency."

"Oh," Christine said. "All right, then."

There were other magical girls gathered as well, most of them seemingly well-acquainted with each other. Diana had exchanged pleasantries sprinkled with a bit of snide commentary with a few of them. The snide commentary had been mostly (all) on her part. A few of the girls were surprised to see the Servant, the mighty religious figure, so casual. Diana knew that at least part of the informality was staged on her own part, but a larger factor was that she simply had no other idea what to do.

The briefing was quick and impersonal. Yoshio had been right. The assembly of this fleet had been a recent development, and command structures were still being put into place. The magical girls might have known each other, but they certainly weren't used to fighting together in a protracted campaign.

They waited there for hours. Eventually Diana took to idly staring off into space and fidgeting. With the way the time spent waiting was weighing down upon her mind, she couldn't think clearly. She recognized the itch in her hands as some childish attention-deficient urge, but there was no paper and pencil to occupy her fingers with, nor anything to sketch. Watching May periodically look up at Christine before shying away didn't help matters.

For a moment, Diana felt a flash of envy for the religious icons of centuries past. The heroes of legends _only_ had to kill demons. Diana still had to kill demons, but now she had to do it in an institution of war.

When the order finally came, the assembled magical girls herded themselves forwards into their boarding crafts. There was much less talking now.

"Time to transform," Christine whispered.

A kaleidoscope of light exploded across the boarding craft, red and blue and gold and green to contrast with the enemy, pale riders atop pale horses, having hurtled light-years through the depths of space for the specific purpose of mankind's destruction.

Out of curiosity, Diana looked across from her to examine May's costume. Tattered, gray cloth comprised most of her clothing. An oversized hood covered most of May's face, which, Diana reflected, was somewhat predictable. She carried a sickle, with a long chain attached to the end, lightly in her hand. Diana didn't know if she was imagining things, but the gray soul gem embedded on the back of May's hood seemed to swirl with the vaguest hint of angry darkness. With a tiny twinge of apprehension, she remembered what Christine had said about Inquisition girls: they were "unstable."

"Hey," Diana whispered, leaning in close to Christine. "You've fought demons before Genesis, right?"

Christine snorted. "Yes. Containment breaches, uncontrolled miasma, minor mutations, outbreaks in rebel regions that don't have the religious infrastructure to control the miasma—didn't you do research?"

"Not gonna lie, I mostly want to hear the words."

"Armada magical girls," Christine said, "would die with the Goddess in their heart and her name on their lips without hesitation. We all know what we're doing. You don't have anything to worry about."

Diana breathed out. "Right."

The ship began to hum with the sound of the laser cannons firing. At the opening notes of the battle, the magical girls exchanged looks, some anticipatory, some fearful.

A green light flashed at the front of the boarding craft. Magical girls began strapping themselves into their seats. Thankfully, accompanying destroyers provided fairly adequate cover for the ships responsible for delivering the landing crafts, so the issue of _landing_ was not very dangerous, especially considering that getting within range to deploy boarders was a matter of a blitz run, using ships with extremely high engine to body ratios in order to achieve greater acceleration for a shorter period of time than the generally faster battleships. Boarding was cost-effective: using small ships, only a couple thousand _mahou shoujo,_ and liberal application of magic and antimatter charges, an admiral deploying his boarders competently could disable entire capitol ships in a matter of thirty minutes.

The humming of the laser cannons faded as their boarding craft was hurled from their home ship. For a few minutes, there was nothing but dead silence. Not even the girls were speaking.

Sudden acceleration shook the craft. They had made touchdown. The light flashed red. Equipment hissed and retracted as the girls left their seats.

The commanding magical girl, a veteran of a massive rebel assault that had occurred in some fort world a decade ago, spoke into their minds as the magical girls lined up at the entrance.

 _The Servant goes in front,_ she said.

Diana felt too numb to even protest as she moved to the front of the craft.

_On my mark. Three—two—one—mark!_

The doors hissed open.

Diana began operating mostly on instinct, because that had proven to be the most efficacious way of deterring paralyzing terror in the past. With a flash of light, she extended her wings. Her bow was already drawn, and with a satisfying _twang,_ the first demon she saw exploded into miasma and grief cubes.

It was only then that Diana registered, in the parts of her mind that weren't occupied with combat, where exactly she was. They had, quite literally, driven into the belly of the beast. Or the thigh. Or the forearm—nobody could really tell. And apparently, the insides of mutated starship-demons were made of a creamy, swirling mixture, from which arms and fingers and faces occasionally emerged.

Diana felt nauseous. She didn't react to the demon in her peripheral vision firing its laser in time and gave a tiny yelp as it clipped her in the shoulder. She downed the demon with an arrow a second later.

 _Careful, rookie,_ someone warned her. Diana's thoughts were occupied too heavily with her heavy breathing, the warm feeling in her arm, and the shooting pain in her shoulder for her to respond.

The remainder of the battle was occupied by a frantic dash, coordinated by magical girls on the ground and occasional direction from the fleet, to their various targets. Some of it was guesswork, and everyone had the unspoken fear that they would arrive at their target and find absolutely nothing, but the mutated demons followed human ship architecture pretty closely.

Diana wondered if, she became afraid enough, she would just go insane and enter some sort of berserk rage. It never happened. She was too busy trying to keep her arm from shaking as she aimed her bow to take the time needed to descend into insanity. Really, insanity would be too easy—some petty excuse for someone who was actually a coward to easily commit acts of brutal violence.

For now, she was fine just running on adrenaline and survival instinct. At least she didn't have to care about the things that she was killing. Diana felt a pang of empathy for May.

Eventually, they found what the engineers back on the _Faithful Soldier_ thought was the engine, which, to the surprise of very few magical girls, turned out to be a massive, beating heart. They had killed their way through swaths of demons, risking their lives in one ludicrously dangerous situation after another—flanking maneuvers, breaking out of encirclements, and flashy demonstrations of magical girl firepower.

Around half a dozen magical girls, herself, Christine, and May included, approached the "engine" cautiously. While they had just cleared the room out, and piles of demon corpses slowly dissolving into miasma littered the area, everyone remained on edge. As Diana stared at it, unbidden images of the hypothetical world where mankind fell to the vast demon forces flashed through her mind. These were monsters, driven by otherworldly forces, bent on destroying mankind, and even if humans could find company with each other, it was alone in the company of the stars.

 _Are we waiting for something?_ May asked. Diana shot her a quick glance. Her intonation was stronger and her voice more confident than she had ever heard May before. It was strange. The fact that May's face was half concealed by her hood only unsettled Diana further. Who the hell got more stable in a place like this?

One of the Armada girls shot May a dirty look. _There's no need to be hasty._

They spent a few minutes setting up the charges while the rest of the girls stood guard.

_Diana._

Turning around, Diana saw May looking at her, the same expression as before still painted across her face. _Yeah?_

The mask across May's face wavered slightly. _A-are you okay?_

Diana didn't say anything. For the past couple minutes, her eyes had adopted the pattern of scanning the entrance hallway, back and forth, and she had absolutely no intention of breaking her newfound habit without very good reason.

 _I-it doesn't really get easier,_ May said. _If you're afraid, you try confronting it, but that doesn't work, or at least, it happens too slowly. You try not being ashamed of it, but that doesn't change the fact that the fear is still there. You just have to d-deal with it._

_Well, that makes me feel better._

_I'm sorry._

Diana sighed. _Don't be._

The girls responsible for setting up the charges stepped away from the engine. _We're done. Let's get out of here._

The instant the girl finished speaking, the roof of the engine room caved in with a mighty roar. Miasma poured forth from the opening like water rushing into a leaking ship. Lasers shot through the room, lacerating one girl into pieces before a final shot destroyed the soul gem in an almost merciful gesture.

As Diana watched the girl die, so fast that she wasn't even sure that it had happened—but she was sure that she would have plenty of time to reflect on it later—she heard a hum, then a throb, then a rhythm that pulsed through the miasma. It was a voice, and its tongue had the capacity for only one word: _kill._

Dozens of multi-armed giants streamed forth from the hole in the ceiling, rushing forwards to engage the magical girls. Without thinking, for thinking was too expensive for her to afford, Diana began rapidly firing arrows, her arms moving automatically as if machines. She cycled through the same actions: reach back, draw arrow, slide back, release. Reach back, draw arrow, slide back, release.

May spun like a top, scythe whirring through the miasma and drawing huge cuts across the demons as she danced her way through the mob. As a demon laser made to slice through her legs, she jumped in the air, scythe cutting through the demon now beneath her as she performed a backflip, before finally landing with the now-disintegrating remains of her enemy at her back.

 _Get back to our craft!_ Christine shouted. One of the girls' screams made her turn around. Standing over the corpse of one of the magical girls was a demon, smaller than the others. Unlike the other demons, this one held a weapon in its hand: an ornate broadsword. Its robes were covered with chitinous armor. Next to it, another one of its kind emerged from the miasma.

Christine eyed the rest of the giants that were beginning to crowd the exit, cutting the magical girls off. _Diana, clear the way out._

Mouth dry, Diana's eyes scanned across the two demons that were beginning to advance on Christine. She had neither the willpower nor the time to protest. _Right._

She loosed a stream of arrows, each one moving too impossibly fast for the human eye, each one hitting a demon with a bone-rattling boom, each one resulting in another exploded demon. The demons, noticing the Servant in their midst, concentrated their fire. They seemed to have mostly gotten over their initial fear of her.

Diana bitterly reflected on the inequity of that.

With a flash of light, she stretched her wings out and took to the air, desperately swerving out of the way of each laser that came her way. As she landed at the demons' feet, one of them lunged towards her, raising a hand as if she was a bug that the demon was going to squash. She notched an arrow, fired it point blank, and watched as the force of impact tore the demon open like a banana split.

The two sword-wielding demons leaped towards Christine. Out of the corner of her eye, Diana noted the strange way Christine was holding her sword: she grasped the sword at two points, one at the hilt, and with her other hand, near the tip of the blade, almost as if it was a polearm rather than a sword.

The first demon's wild swing glanced harmlessly off Christine's armor. As the demon reeled forwards, out of balance, Christine reached forwards and ducked low, pressing her sword against the demon's knee. With one swift upward motion, Christine used her leverage against the demon's leg to uproot it and send it reeling backwards. It fell to the ground, prone. Christine's eyes immediately turned to her next opponent.

The other demon came forwards more cautiously, but Christine was still faster. Metal clanked against metal as the two warriors of steel clashed. With a sickening crunch, Christine brought her sword rocketing upwards and slammed the tip of Christine's cross-guard against the demon's face. One quick stab to the throat later, and the demon was dead. Christine turned around to meet the first demon, still struggling to stand up. Almost casually, she brought her sword to the demon's helmet and slid it through an eye slit.

 _Come on, let's go!_ Christine shouted. The demons were beginning to disperse.

Diana didn't waste any more time. Killing another demon, she turned to the surviving magical girls. _Exit's here._

As the last magical girl fled the engine room and was an appreciable distance away, a flash of light shone from the doors marked the detonation of the charges. Most of the demons that had been pursuing the girls were incinerated.

Diana's eyes glanced over the girls who came out and tried not to remember that more had gone in.

 _Extraction's coming,_ Christine said. _We're getting out of here._

The journey back was mostly uneventful. As the remains of demons littered the area, the girls took whatever opportunity they could to stock up on grief cubes. Supplies, plentiful at the beginning of the mission, had run out rather quickly over the course of the hellish hour.

 _Damn animals,_ one of the girls said, picking up a few grief cubes off the ground. _They don't even think. Shouldn't we have outgrown our natural predators thousands of years ago?_

Diana bit her lips as a tingle ran through her spine. Nobody answered the girl.

Some of the miasma was gathering once more, to Diana's apprehension. If it became dense enough, more demons could spawn.

A bolt of light shot out from the fog, speeding towards Christine's head. It would have hit her if a robed hand hadn't forced her down an instant before. May's gleaming sickle slashed once, twice, and then the hidden demon died as the miasma dispersed.

Christine stared at the spot where the demon had been. _Thank you._

May, still walking resolutely forwards, didn't say anything.

"Hey," Christine said, placing a hand on May's shoulders. The other magical girls were too busy holding their breath to say anything. "May."

"What?"

Christine tossed her a grief cube.

"Do you think I need one?"

"Yes. Take it."

After squaring her shoulders and staring back at Christine for a couple seconds, May capitulated. Her soul gem disappeared from her hood and reappeared in her hand. The two trinkets, May's soul and the grief cube, clinked together as she closed her fist.

Several seconds passed in silence as the magical girls continued to make their way back to extraction.

 _I-I'm sorry,_ May said, her shoulders slumping as tension was released from then. She brushed the bangs out of her face as she turned to look at Christine. It was Diana's first unobstructed view of May's face. It didn't carry very much emotion, not, it seemed, for lack of trying, but only because it was too tired to form the expressions.

Christine shook her head. _Don't be._

 _I'm sorry that we're both associated with the Prophet-Prince. Otherwise you wouldn't have to spend time with me. I don't think I'm very pleasant to be around._ Diana had said the same words sarcastically enough times to tell when someone was being sincere.

Christine's eyebrows drew together. It was the darkest Diana had ever seen Christine look. _You need to stop doing that._

 _W-what?_ In the absence of demons to fight, May's voice was once again faltering.

_It's the worst thing in the world to hear someone hate themselves. All it does is remind me how impossible it is for anybody to ever help them, so I hate hearing it._

May's eyes dropped to the ground. _I'll try to stop._

Diana picked a grief cube off the ground, placed it on the tip of her thumb, and flicked it at the back of May's head, catching the cube off the rebound.

"Hey!"

Diana remembered the words: _We_ are _friends, right?_

"I'm reserving the right to flick things at you whenever you get excessively gloomy. I mean, here we are. We're stuck in some eldritch demon _thing's_ corpse, surrounded by the remains of hundreds of fallen enemies. It's a beautiful sight, isn't it?"

May's brought a hand to her face.

"Hey, _I'm_ sorry that I'm not very funny."

May shook her head. _Don't be._

 _That,_ Christine said, speaking privately to Diana, _was hardly more intelligent than anything Yoshio and I have ever said to her._

 _Yeah, yeah,_ Diana responded. _Oh—oh, shit._

They had made their way to their extraction point, and the comforting presence of absolutely nothing greeted them.

"Extraction, where are you?" Christine asked, speaking into her communicator.

A familiar voice answered her: "Stand-by. There have been a few complications."

Diana blinked. "Please tell me that I am hallucinating. I don't even care about the fucking extraction. We can just fucking sit here until the end of time for all I care. Please tell me that I am not hearing Yoshio's voice."

There was an audible clicking noise as Christine ground her teeth together. "Yoshio, I want to know why _you_ are answering me." The rest of the girls were giving her blank, confused looks.

A different voice came onto the line. "The Prophet-Prince is present on my invitation. Further explanation will be available later. Until then, standby, Lieutenant McDonnell. Everything is under control."

Diana buried her face in her hands. "I'm sure that's why they put a teenaged head of state in the military installation, and then got him on the bridge—because everything is under fucking control. Holy _shit._ "

"I-I'm sure Yoshio knows what he's doing," May said.

"Then you don't know him well enough!" Diana said. "He is exactly the kind of moron who places himself in this kind of shitty hellhole situation when he does not _actually have to!"_

Suddenly, her vision blurred. Every single injury she had incurred over the course of the battle now seemed to have a personal vendetta against her. Diana knew that she was better than that. All magical girls were made with some talent, and Diana had certainly not been cheated. But she had been careless, and paralyzed when she shouldn't have been. All those times when she had been desperate, she hadn't been competent, and now she was paying the price. She counted herself lucky that her incompetence hadn't managed to let anyone else get hurt.

Stupidity felt like a heavy weight placed on her shoulders. Having to try to accept that she had not been the most effective magical girl wasn't anything but degrading.

"I need grief cubes."

Without inquiring any further, Christine tossed her some. Grief cube distribution in the military remained on a strictly professional basis as a matter of protocol.

The Goddess was up in her Heaven, and, as Diana felt the fatigue but not the underlying self-disappointment seep away, she reflected that there was not a single damn thing she could personally do from up there about anything. Faith in her but not her actual presence was all that remained to cleanse despair—that, and empty grief cubes.

-x-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> weee more updates
> 
> comments always appreciated 
> 
> have a nice day


	4. Terrible Swift Sword

The instant Yoshio walked onto the bridge of the _Faithful Soldier_ , the simultaneous scrutiny of a dozen older and more experienced men and women dashed whatever idle thoughts he might have been having. He listened to the sound of his throat pulsing as he swallowed.

"You asked for me, sir?"

Yoshio celebrated a small personal victory that he had not made an immediate fool out of himself. While it might have occurred to Diana to be promptly saddened by such personal celebration, it did not occur to Yoshio.

Yoshio's eyes flitted over to Captain Liang. The man had fairly distinct characteristics: he was very tall for a Chinese man, with a narrow countenance and pointed, perpetually-glaring eyes. Yoshio was a split-second slow in realizing that Captain Liang was staring right back at him, studying him in turn. Yoshio flinched, and then felt bad for flinching, at which point an endless feedback loop of teenaged insecurity began ravaging Yoshio's thought processes.

"Yes," Captain Liang said. "I'm flattered that My Lord will address me as 'sir,' but I am not your tutor. Technically, I am your subordinate, but I'm sure that if I addressed _you_ as 'sir' the irregularity would only make both of us uncomfortable. I will thus refrain from doing so."

Yoshio nodded hastily. "I-if you don't mind me asking, _why_ did you call for me?"

Chu-Ko Liang raised one sharply angled eyebrow. "Then I take it you would rather stay in the civilian escort chambers? Very well. Lieutenant Irino, if you'd please bring up a list of available evacuation chambers for the Prophet-Prince to spend the duration of the battle—"

"Wait!"

"Yes, My Lord?"

"I will stay."

From the warm sensation in his head, Yoshio knew that he was blushing. Whether it was from embarrassment or the acute irritation that now buzzed in his head, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that Chu-ko Liang was playing with him, and that he, direct matrilineal descendant of Tatsuya Kaname, was a member of _the_ ruling family of mankind, and that all things considered he really shouldn't have had to take Chu-ko Liang's shit.

"Very well," Captain Liang said. At a wave of his hand, a sloped platform extended from the raised platform upon which he stood, watching over the rest of the bridge. Yoshio took the implied invitation and stepped onto the platform.

The bridge of the _Faithful Soldier_ was arrayed around a giant holographic pit displaying the ongoing battle. The captain had direct control over the central display, with each bridge member having smaller personal copies of the display for individual use. Right now, Yoshio could see that the human battle-group was orbiting the sole moon of Blue Frontier, the outstretched finger of Hierocratic expansion in the sector. Blue Frontier was solidly under the Hierocracy's grip, thanks to a strategic combination of intermarriage between Himmelsschloss nobility and the local government and the always-effective threat of "comply or we'll have a battleship captain take a vacation in geocentric orbit above the colony capitol." Thankfully, Blue Frontier's local militia was underdeveloped enough that such threats were still met with compliance. For colonies that had been isolated for close to a century in both space and time before the advent of FTL engines, local cultures and strong nationalistic sentiment tended to make that not the case.

"Sir, the admiral says that we're taking defensive positions around the moon," one of the bridge technicians said. "This ship is to run its boarding parties and then rejoin the main force. Timetables are at your discretion."

Captain Liang nodded once before commencing a barrage of orders. Yoshio knew that most of them were just simple bookkeeping and maintenance, but he still appreciated the thoroughness. Protocol existed so that the important details that kept people from dying weren't neglected.

Most of it, though, was fairly routine business until new dots, colored an angry red, began appearing within the holographic pit, one after another.

"The enemy is three light-seconds outside cannon range."

Scouting drones could only give estimates on the size of the demon force, especially considering that the demons could withdraw or supply troops from their miasma fronts at will. Only at the onset of battle could the true size of the enemy force be properly determined.

Compared to the human force, the demons were a cat against a lion. Captain Liang smiled. "We outnumber them. Lieutenant Okonagi, determine optimal targets for boarding, preferably their larger ships. After that, I want you to get the AI to give us the optimal flight path in and out of the strike zone. Lieutenant Kurosawa, prepare the engines. The firing teams should know their job. I want maximum efficiency. If AIs could do everything, then I would just sit here alone. This is where you prove your worth as human beings."

Yoshio studied the enemy deployments on the holographic display. "This looks to be a scouting detachment, given how small it is. I would not be surprised if they withdrew."

"Then we chase them," Captain Liang said, not missing a beat. "There is nothing but empty space for the hundreds of thousands of kilometers until the edge of this system. Unless they have magic, they have no traps ready, and I am fairly confident that the only person capable of working miracles is on our side."

"It seems risky," Yoshio said. "But I like it."

Yoshio realized that a few of the bridge technicians were giving him curious looks. What was the Prophet-Prince, cradled in the seat of privilege for his entire life, doing out here, on the frontier of civilization, and on the bridge of a warship no less? And what was he doing discussing the battle with the captain of the ship?

Having the decency to be embarrassed, Yoshio blushed. There were no good answers to those questions.

"Ah," Captain Liang said, lips curling into the shadow of a smirk. "I've read your file."

Yoshio's eyes narrowed. "Have you?"

"There is no need to be embarrassed."

As the bridge technicians turned back to the work, Yoshio was busy seething. Focusing on the battle helped to prevent that. He was more mature than this. He was the Prophet-Prince.

"Shift reference frame to this ship," Captain Liang said. On the holographic display, the moon, along with the ships orbiting it, began to accelerate to the back of the display, while the alien ships began zooming in closer. The _Faithful Soldier,_ accompanied by a few other destroyers, was going in for the raiding blitz.

"Fleet battleships are in range and have begun firing."

"Sir, we have our entry and exit courses."

Captain Liang nodded. "Hit it."

The ship drew yet closer to the demons. Now, they had been noticed. White lances of light shot out from the far blackness. Most missed, but one hit the ships' shields, sending rumbles throughout the structure.

Captain Liang, in true starship captain style, gave the appearance of being completely unfazed. "Keep power to the engines and hold your fire."

"Sir, there is visual confirmation of the enemy."

"Display it."

A corner of the holographic display was replaced by a visual feed from the outside of the ship. Most of it was just the empty void of space, but a small, white dot could be discerned in the middle of the darkness.

"Magnify it."

For most of the people aboard the bridge, this was the closest they had been to ever seeing a demon. It was certainly the first time they had ever witnessed the new demons, swollen to monstrous sizes, that now served as the ships of the demon navy. When the news first broke, the idea had seemed absurd to many.

But the enormous pixels and the white robes displayed across the screen were unmistakable. The proportions were horribly off: the thing's stomach was bloated beyond any reasonable size, and the neck was elongated as if a snake had grown out of the demon's throat. It followed no principles of ship architecture or common sense. None of that mattered. It was one of those things from the other side, like magical girls and Incubators that no human being ever really understood, even after centuries of research. But unlike magical girls and Incubators, the demons were not on humanity's side. They were animals, and they wanted every human being alive a slave to despair.

Yoshio felt his chest tightening. Over the course of the past few weeks, the gag reflex had mostly died down, but close proximity to demons always seemed to do strange things to Prophets.

The _mahou shoujo_ and the Armada were the ultimate shields that protected humanity. Hope was nothing but a motivator. Wasn't that right? Years and years of listening to the same words, placed on the same lips time after time again, dulled the edges.

Yet he still believed in those words, didn't he? He placed them on his lips time after time again, telling people that hope remained and that everything would be all right. His older sister believed in those words. Kaname Chiaki was still a child and she believed in those words.

"Launch boarders," Captain Liang said.

The boarding crafts shot out, too small to be targeted by the demon battleship, too small to carry any explosives that could put a serious dent in a ship's shields within the vacuum of space, but the perfect size to carry mankind's most dangerous weapon: a _mahou shoujo._

Lasers shot out from the demon's body, targeting the battleship. This time, at the extreme close range, there was little chance that any of the beams would miss. Damage readouts flashed across everyone's holographic displays.

"They're terrible shots," Yoshio muttered. "They couldn't even hit any critical systems."

Captain Liang smirked. "I feel as if you've somehow placed a terrible curse over this entire operation, My Lord. What if they learn? Or adapt?"

"They haven't _now,_ " Yoshio said. "They're exactly as fresh as we are. We might as well celebrate while we can."

One of the technicians looked up. "Sir, the demons are preparing another volley."

"Then withdraw the ship."

As the destroyer made its way back into the main force, darkness once again surrounded the ship on all sides. Allies and enemies were once again tiny specks in the distance. Tiny flashes of light were all that denoted the firing of laser cannons.

On the display, the neat fronts of the two forces had mostly disintegrated into a random smattering of extremely spaced-out multi-colored dots, but Yoshio could still see the underlying patterns. Ship AIs usually ensured that geometric advantages were conserved as the ships moved.

The demons near the back of the formation were moving around the bulk of the human force. Yoshio frowned. In an age where starships could look and fire in all directions at once, flanking was hardly a tactical priority.

"Admiral's orders are to press the attack," one of the technicians said.

Yoshio looked over to see Captain Liang with a similarly troubled expression. "Something seems wrong."

"Well," Yoshio said, coughing lightly into his palm, "I cannot remember the last time pressing the attack when 'something seems wrong' was ever a good idea."

"Your input is greatly appreciated, My Lord."

"In theory, it works," Yoshio said, gesturing at the display. "They're moving in between us and the planet, which eventually eliminates all the room they have to get out of our firing range."

"But there is a trap," Captain Liang, said.

"Of course. Until they play their hand, though, there seems to be no immediate danger in hammering them into oblivion from higher orbit."

The battleships of the Armada were equipped with eight heavy laser cannons. While a two-second duration pulse from each one was not individually dealing significant damage to an enemy ship, a stream of pulses over a few minutes would eventually destroy or disable every critical component of a functioning spacecraft. The next issue, then, was avoiding being hit in the first place—the most obvious tactic was to move out of range, at which point targeting computers could no longer account for a ship's acceleration. The textbook way to move out of range was either to fire the engines in the other direction, or randomly accelerate the ship, which decreased the enemy's effective range, especially when sensors were restricted by the speed of light.

The demons could do none of those things. The other direction was blocked by an exceptionally large rock. Random acceleration had no benefit when the other ships were closing in. All they could do was sit there and return fire, which was a losing proposition when they were outnumbered.

If Captain Liang were to open a visual feed on the bridge, they would see twinkling amongst the stars: the firing of dozens of laser cannons, each one delivering enough energy to power a home for a thousand lifetimes or destroy a ship in ten minutes.

Yoshio had only ever read about the military might of the Hierocracy. He had never truly experienced it. When he watched it firsthand, the awe was enough to make him forget about the nausea, anxiety, and doubt. Emotion was on a string pulled by power. As a Prophet, he knew that. They had built an empire on the foundations of divine might and a deity's mandate to rule, so they knew what power and its promise did to human emotion.

Once, when they were both alone and neither knew what to say to each other, Christine had told him about heroes. He knew immediately that she doubted. It was a depressing exercise to consider that there were really no true heroes, that justice was inherently flawed, and that purity had no pragmatic warrants. So he had told her that they didn't need any of those things as long as they had power, which _they did._

She had looked at him strangely after that. The words, sweet and seductive as they were, still tasted bad on his lips.

Captain Liang coughed, shaking Yoshio out of his thoughts. "The admiral wants us to slow our advance."

"So he notices something wrong as well?"

"Apparently so," Captain Liang said. "Still, I have to question the decision. We've already walked into the trap, whatever it is. But whatever the trap is, there is nothing the demons can do about the fact that if we just keep moving forwards, they will all die."

Yoshio queried the computer for some statistics. "Our accuracy is at sixty-three percent. That number could be one hundred if we were closer."

Nevertheless, they followed the admiral's orders. Engines were pointed away from the moon, accelerating the ship in the opposite direction. The _Faithful Soldier_ , along with all the other ships in the fleet, began to slow down.

There were five battleships in the sector's defending fleet. While nothing compared to the fleets commanded by the Lord Admirals, five battleships was still a respectable force. These battleships lead the fleet forwards.

Earlier in the battle, three of those battleships had been boarded. None of the escorting demon ships had survived the deep insertion, but the boarding demons had made their way into the ships. Magical girls onboard the battleships were fighting off the demons, but several factors made it such that nobody really knew what their status was. Even with telepathic communication, a boarded ship behaved exactly like a normal ship until the boarders managed to destroy a critical system. Even then, systems were not interdependent on each other, so a ship with destroyed navigational functions could still fire completely normally. And, finally, there was little other ships could _do_ about boarders, being hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart, so nobody really bothered to litter the fleet-wide communications with status updates.

This was why, when several dots indicating human ships began accelerating towards the demons, nobody really knew what was happening for the first couple seconds. The distress signals came one after another. Technicians scrambled to decipher the incoming transmissions. Then, one bridge member turned around.

"The demons have destroyed the engines on several of our ships in a coordinated attack. They have also planted artificial gravity devices on those ships, seemingly reverse-engineered from the drives that generate the fields on starships. They seem to increase the magnitude of the gravitational field strength acting on any objects within the vicinity of the devices."

Yoshio blinked. His mind wasn't whirring. He had mostly figured out the implications when the words "artificial gravity devices" were mentioned.

"Rotate the display so that the direction of the gravitational field is pointed down."

Once that was done, it was blindingly obvious what the demons' plan was. The ships were falling towards the demons, who had arrayed themselves in a bowl to catch them. It was a suicide tactic. Catching their prey would cripple the demons: they were drawing the firepower of three battleships closer and closer into range. The rest of the human fleet would clean them up afterwards. But those ships were accelerating "down," with no ability to dodge, while the fleet was accelerating "up," so they couldn't count on much support. If they did nothing, those ships were doomed.

Yoshio glanced at Captain Liang. Though neither man would ever say it to each other, each of them saw unparalleled confidence in the other's eyes at that moment. Kaname Yoshio had thought that Chu-ko Liang was green and an example of the bad logistics that had resulted in the slipshod composition of the sector's defense fleet, and Chu-ko Liang had thought much the same of Kaname Yoshio. Those perceptions died in that moment.

Captain Liang nodded back at Yoshio. "Reverse engines. We're going in."

Thirty seconds later, several other cruisers and destroyers began following the _Faithful Soldier._ Similar decisions had apparently been made on their bridges as well.

As they hurled closer and closer to the demons, one of the battleships began taking heavy fire. The majority of the demon fleet was concentrating their fire on one ship, and a minute later, a tiny flash went off in the distance while one of the dots on the display disappeared. Thousands of people were dead, Yoshio thought, and it all amounted to one tiny dot.

He looked at the other dots on the screen and thought of the thousands of people behind those as well—then the demons, and the horde of monsters that was represented there. And for the first time in his life, while thinking about the numbers that lay behind a display, Kaname Yoshio knew with absolute certainty what he was going to do.

Captain Liang was rattling out orders like a machine. "Cut in front of the disabled ships and draw the demons' fire. Send a transmission to the ships who followed us to do the same."

"On it, sir."

"Target the demons firing on the battleships and get me a firing solution."

"Yes, sir. We have a firing solution, sir."

"Guns ready?"

"The gunners have their hands hovering over the big red buttons, sir."

"All cannons, fire at will."

When the demons realized that they had caught unwanted prey in their trap—prey with engines that could still maneuver—their response was not as methodical as it had been when everything had been going according to plan. Demons that were still distracted by their previous prey made easy pickings. A few smaller ships suffered major damage, but not catastrophic. The remaining battleships survived.

Captain Liang was more animated during the battle than Yoshio had seen him be for the past hour. The thrill of ship-to-ship combat, it seemed, was exciting enough to penetrate the calm, self-assured exterior that Yoshio had originally observed. Yoshio thought that he would make a good conductor. His ship was small, but for all the world it seemed like he was directing combat operations on a mighty war machine the size of a dreadnought. Even towards the end of the battle, when they had the demons' throats at their feet, Liang still did not relent. Every five minutes he brought up a list of still-functional demon ships, chose the closest ship on that list, and crossed his arms and tapped his feet until the unending barrage from his ship removed the target from the list.

"Sir, we have a transmission from our boarding party," someone said. "The extraction, ah, is late, sir."

There was silence as the bridge realized that they had inadvertently abandoned their boarders.

"Oh, _shit,_ " Yoshio muttered. "Patch them in."

-x-

After the battle was over, Christine found Yoshio in his quarters, lying on his bed. He was holding a small, simple ring up to the light.

"I heard what you did," Christine said.

"Captain Liang did most of it."

Christine, despite the smile that brightened her face, shook her head. "Why does modesty suit people like you so well?"

With a faint click, Yoshio put the ring down on the counter next to his bed. "I don't want to live modestly."

"Oh?" Christine said, raising an eyebrow.

"I have spent my entire life up until this point living modestly," Yoshio said. "And in that time, I have not been of any use to anybody."

Christine looked down for a moment. "You assume that you _have_ to be of use to somebody."

"No. I _decide_ that I _want_ to be of use."

Gently, Christine sat next to Yoshio. "Heroism has no practical value. It's all ideals in the end."

The mattress creaked as Yoshio turned onto his side. Christine had always either seen him poring over a holographic display or a book, deep in thought, looking supremely unsure of himself, or, at the complete opposite pole, with absolute conviction burning in his eyes.

Now he looked at her openly. It was the one time she had seen him be emotive, instead of having the emotion cover what he was. His expression carried a distant longing. With a sympathetic twinge, Christine realized how vulnerable it made him look.

"I thought about what I had said earlier," Yoshio said. "About how we don't need heroes as long as we have power. I think that I've changed my mind."

Yoshio licked his lips to give himself time before he began speaking again. "Heroes were part of my bedtime stories. I heard about them even more as I left childhood, and I believed in them, but once my tutoring began, reality began to interfere. There are still expectations for men, ones that don't exist for non-contracted women. We have to live up to certain standards, and I knew that I didn't. I would never be a hero as a figurehead, so I stopped believing in them. Inside Himmelsschloss' walls, I could only find them in the darkness of the past and the fantasy of my mind.

"Then, I met you. You don't know how to back down, or give up, or surrender. I think pride suits you very well. You _are_ a hero, whether or not you believe it. If nobody else does it, you'll protect the innocent. If nobody else, I trust that you will still have principles. How can I not believe in heroes when one stands before me?"

Christine stared at him and the innocence that opened his face. She was anything but innocent and seeing a child's dreams on a man's face only reminded her of that.

"It's all an act," Christine said, voice breaking. She cast her eyes downwards. In that moment, she did not feel very prideful. "I'm just going through the motions. How does any of it matter when I don't even believe in myself, and I don't believe in what I'm fighting for? What does it matter when every day I ask myself why I still believe so strongly in those fairy tale morals? I am unimaginably lucky that I haven't been tested yet."

Christine didn't move as Yoshio sat up, twisting to look at her downcast eyes. When he placed a hand on her shoulder, she flinched.

"Don't you see?" she said. "Diana's terrified out there, and there's nothing I can do to help her. And I insulted May the first time I met her. There's nothing I can do for anyone."

"You made _me_ believe," Yoshio said. "Do you honestly think that?"

Christine's shoulders were tense under Yoshio's hands. "I—I don't know."

The irony of the situation was almost too much. She had seen vulnerability in Yoshio, born out of his belief in an ideal, and now that same vulnerability was surely covering her own face.

Yoshio's voice was quiet but strong, like the distant hum of a laser cannon firing light into the blackness of space. "I do not care if being a hero is not enough. There's no reason why I have to believe in either heroism or practicality, but not both. Today I saw what daring action, faith in the Goddess, and several dozen laser cannons could do to those demons. The principles and ideals that we hold so greatly only have substance once potency is placed behind them, but once that potency is achieved, there is no reason we need to let go of those ideals. And in the end, we still need heroes. _Hope_ is still a necessity."

At that point, all Christine wanted were answers. She didn't want to argue and was trying her hardest to quell any doubts, so all she asked was, "Why?"

"Because if we have our heroes at our sides and hope in our hearts, it is impossible for us to give up, and in these times, mankind can simply not afford to risk its own will. The slightest chance of surrender is fatal. When we give in, they win, and we die."

Christine's lips twisted into a crooked smile. "So it's just a matter of practicality?"

"Principles are only worth having if they result in good deeds and good ends."

"You sound like a philosopher."

"I've had some tutoring. Religious studies also help."

Christine felt her shoulders relax. Sensing the change in posture, Yoshio turned to look at her. "Do you believe me?"

"I…" Christine said, pausing for a moment to exhale. "I think I do."

"By my standards, that's as good as doing."

Christine smiled. "I wish I could have known you before this war started. Now everything is in jeopardy."

"I will still be here tomorrow," Yoshio said, deadpan tone belayed by the humor in his eyes.

"I know," Christine said. "But I still wish that this war was over."

"Then I am going to do my best to end it."

Christine chuckled. "How?"

"As soon as I can, I will speak with Captain Liang about becoming his first officer. While on the bridge, I noticed that the position was open. I intend on filling in."

Christine stared blankly at Yoshio for some time. The meaning and implications were immediately obvious to her, and, if she thought about it, it made sense for Yoshio to make such a decision. She still didn't know how to react, though.

She finally settled for a slight change of topic. "So how much do you think you can do to end the war?"

"As much as any human being can do," Yoshio said. "That's pride, isn't it? 'The light of the soul burns bright and eternal within each individual heart of mankind, whether or not it is contained in a soul gem, as long as hope is held close and dear. And let it be known to all who hear the holy words from the Prophet's lips, that each light can be used to guide the lost and the despairing to a new and glorious dawn, and that each human being is a shepherd and a savior—for the bond between the soul and the Goddess is only surpassed by the bond between one's soul and the soul of her fellow. And let it be known to all who hear the holy words from the Prophet's lips, that each light can spark and flare into holy fire, a righteous inferno to cleanse that which would seek to corrupt mankind, a burning sword to shield the hope of mankind. As long as that light still burns, every human being is capable of feats just as wondrous as the deeds of the Goddess' Servant.'"

"You sound practiced," Christine said. "Have you said those words before?"

"Yes," Yoshio said. "But this is the sweetest they have tasted in a long time."

Christine nodded before giggling lightly. "Do you remember what you looked like when Diana realized that you were a Prophet?"

"I remember being flashy and gaudy," Yoshio said, frowning. "The lights are only for physical proof. There is practical purpose: in the past, magical girls would be far more easily persuaded by a supernatural person who was clearly not a magical girl than anything else."

"I thought that you would light up," Christine said, stifling more laughter, "when you were reciting the scripture. It seemed fitting."

Yoshio rolled his eyes. "You sound like Diana. Nowadays, glamour effects are rare. My elder sister has only done it in public once or twice, and only on special occasions. I don't know why it happened on that ship. It has never happened to Chiaki."

"Your elder sister," Christine said. "Would you mind if I asked a personal question about her?"

Yoshio shook his head.

"Are you ever envious of her?"

For a moment, Yoshio hummed in thought. Absentmindedly, he picked up the ring from his bedside. "When I was a child, I think I was. I was groomed to be part of the Himmelsschloss nobility, but I am told that I was quiet and reserved. It seems that I was too quiet to ever express resentment for Haruka, who was showered with attention from my mother and father, from the tutors, from everyone. But still, she was very kind to me. She had a soft, warm heart. It has chilled over the years. She is still my sister, but there is iron there now. She has to lead an empire, after all. Guarded by the domed cathedrals that litter Himmelsschloss, I don't think any of us, back then, ever thought that the Hierocracy would come to this. I had thought, only a year ago, that I had resigned myself to the backseat of passive nobility. Maybe I would join the clergy and govern, but it would just be an extension of my childhood. The politics would all be controlled from Himmelsschloss."

"Like you were under the shadow of your family?" Christine asked.

"Yes," Yoshio said. "Have you ever felt the same way?"

"For a while, I did," Christine said. "But then I realized that the concept of McDonnell family honor was what I had always wanted to aspire to—or maybe they molded it into me, but either way, it hardly makes a difference. And even still, it's not like the political elements of my family are concerned with the adventurous parts. They don't care about heroes, so the McDonnell _mahou shoujo_ have to stick together."

Yoshio shook his head sadly. "The Prophets are _all_ theo-political. I fear that my sister will be rather displeased when she hears of my intentions."

"Do you think that she'll do anything about it?"

Yoshio paused to consider the question. "I doubt it. She knows that it would put strain on our relationship, and she respects me enough to leave me to my own devices most of the time."

Christine nodded. "I think that I would like to know her better," Christine said. "The Prophet-Queen has always been a distant figure. Given that we all put so much faith in the Goddess, and she is our closest link to her, I feel knowing her would be the best way to know the Goddess."

"Do I come in for a close second?"

"Well," Christine said, smirking, "what _do_ you know about the Goddess?"

Christine's question had Yoshio's train of thought come to a screeching halt as he turned her words over. Watching him stumble over his own mind was somewhat amusing, Christine thought.

"Here," Yoshio finally said, showing his ring to Christine. "There is an engraving in the inside band. Nobody ever sees it."

"Really?" Christine asked. As she held the ring up to the light, she could indeed see words written in fine print along the inside of the ring, glimmering gently against the metal's golden color. They were the only decoration that Christine had ever seen on one of the things, yet they were hidden from the rest of the world, hardly functioning as decoration at all.

Squinting to make out the words, Christine slowly read, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth."

Christine turned the ring over to see if anything else was written but found nothing. "It sounds like scripture," she said.

"It's not. Well, not the scripture of the Hierocracy."

"What is it, then?"

Yoshio shrugged. "It's an allusion to an ancient, pre-Hierocracy religion that died out with some civil war a couple centuries after the Hierocracy was founded.'

"So how does this answer my question? And why did the Prophet family decide to engrave the scripture of 'an ancient, pre-Hierocracy religion' on their rings? The easiest explanation I can think of makes no sense, because from what history says about Kaname Tatsuya, he was a rather bold man, hardly 'meek'."

"Yes," Yoshio said. "Nobody ever told _me_ what it meant. None of the Prophets were told. Once the Prophet is old enough, the meaning eventually deciphers itself, and in the end, it's nothing but a petty in-joke."

-x-

Before the commencement of the long grind, whatever the grind was, Diana always felt a special kind of dread. Once the grind began, it would wear her down and dull her, which would render her immune—but before then, she was at her most vulnerable.

She sat in her bed, staring at the soul gem that rested in her palms. After the battle, the resultant grief cube surplus had been more than enough to replenish her soul gem, so she watched her soul gem glow, a hollow crystal lantern that shone with hollow light. Her blanket pooled around her ankles, and the ship felt very cold.

Before her stretched the rest of her life, occupied by nothing but the life of a _mahou shoujo._ She would kill demons; she might become very good at it. But she didn't think she would ever stop being afraid of them.

The logical conclusion came to Diana with a tiny, barely-functional smile: the obvious solution to fear would simply be to kill all the demons.

Her pad and pencil found their way into her hands. She drew without thinking consciously of anything but the technique, a machine set to automatic. Onto the paper appeared images of the demons, robes and pixelated heads at first, but then followed by the multi-jointed arms, and the clay flesh, and the ridged spines. They jostled one another in a twisted amalgamation of bodies and appendages, all of them hungering for something unseen.

The sound of her door sliding open drew Diana's attention. She looked up to see May standing in the doorway. Unlike last time, she walked right in.

"Hey," Diana said, tucking her pad under the pillow.

"Are you all right?" May asked. The words came out surprisingly naturally, without unnecessary pauses or rushing.

"Never been better," Diana said, not a hint of inflection in her voice. "But anyways, speak for yourself. What was that back there, with Christine and the grief cubes?"

May lowered her eyes. "I'm never all right, but I don't see why that has to be the case for you."

"So then, you're the blind leading the blind."

"I…I guess."

"To be fair, though," Diana said, "everyone's stuck in the same shitty boat in the end. Even normal people. Demons are coming for us all, aren't they?"

May fell silent for some time.

"W-why did you want to make me feel better, at the end of the mission?"

Diana shrugged. "I dunno," she said, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. "I'm not exactly the paragon of selflessness. So, when I want friends, I go fishing for sympathy."

When Diana looked up to see if May was smiling, she was met only with a sad, distant look. Diana had not seen many smiles recently.

"You don't seem like the kind of person who would do that."

"I don't?" Diana said, startled by how sharp her voice sounded, biting into her own ear. She bit down on her lip hard, too angry to really care very much about the pain. When she had gathered her composure again, she said, making sure to keep herself under control, "You don't know how desperate I am. I try to please everybody I meet by trying to pull off some sad, pathetic facsimile of people who are _actually_ clever or witty. And I pretend that under everything there's actually a heart of gold, but the _truth_ is nothing's there but more derision."

All May did was continue to stare at Diana, not even looking like she was trying to think of something to say. Diana found that the constant scrutiny wasn't, surprisingly, at all uncomfortable. She was still too preoccupied with other things—how miserably, in her own eyes, she had performed on her first test. The _end results_ of the missionhad been fine but the journey there had been hell itself, and Diana knew, then, that any reassurances she had privately tried to make that _we are going to be fine_ were all lies.

"Y-you tried to be _my_ friend," May finally said.

The idea that the conversation was taking a turn for the decidedly non-preferable occurred faintly, dimly, to Diana, but she blithely plowed on regardless. "Yes, and?" she said. "I've had time to mull things over. Don't feel bad, because there are plenty of better people besides me that you should be able to make friends with."

May flinched, obvious hurt flashing across her face, before she narrowed her eyes and stepped forwards. "How can you _say_ that?" she said, and she didn't seem at all offended at the edges ground into her words. "That it was all a lie? That you would _actually_ lie like that? I-I don't know what's worse, that you'd say that about yourself, or that you'd really do it. I-I thought you were better than that."

"Are you trying to guilt trip me?"

"Yes!"

 _Then,_ when she saw the glittering of moisture in the corners of May's eyes, and the lines of anger—not dull anger, the simmering self-disappointed kind that she was feeling now, but hot anger, the kind where May had been wronged and the anger was just a by-product of the hurt—carved as if by a knife into her face, the guilt kicked in.

"I'm sorry," Diana said.

"You're afraid of the demons, right?"

"Yes."

"So you're ashamed of yourself, that you're afraid, because you're supposed to be stronger, right?"

"Yes."

"A-and," May said, taking a breath, "I don't even know what it must f-feel like, being the Servant, but I expect that it would only make things worse."

"Just imagine everything being worse, and you have a pretty good idea of what it feels like."

"I-I wasn't lying before," May said. "None of it gets better or easier. I don't know what everyone else does. I buried it. I-I learned to be as twisted as the other people in the Inquisition. I love combat. I'm doing the Goddess' work, right? Why not enjoy it? So then—then I don't have to spend all of my time being so miserable that I can't even function, like you."

Diana looked up and started laughing.

"W-what?" May asked, cheeks flushing.

"i-I don't know," Diana said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's just the way you say it. We're all fucked, aren't we? That's why the Incubators grant us the wishes—because we can literally think of _anything we want,_ and being a magical girl is _still_ going to turn out to be worse. Or maybe _life_ is the thing that inevitably turns out to be worse, but we're just the ones who have it turn out _worst._ "

"Um, t-that doesn't seem very funny."

"It really doesn't," Diana said. "So, in a development that doesn't really surprise anybody, you're actually miserable all the time."

"Not—not miserable. Just numb."

"I don't think the numbness has set in yet, for me," Diana said. "The dread is at its sharpest. It _picks_ , you know? But I guess, if I can feel it picking me, I'm still—still _alive,_ right? And I'm glad that I am. Death scares me more than anything else."

"I don't know anybody who isn't afraid of death," May said. "Anyone sane, at least."

Diana coughed uncomfortably. "And, uh, I'm sorry that I said those things. I didn't mean them. You don't deserve that."

"B-but," May said, beginning to wring her hands, "y-you said that everything you said was all a selfish act. Even the nice things."

Diana stared at May and was struck by how innocent she seemed, how much like a child. "It doesn't matter."

"Why not?" Her voice was growing hard again.

"I—" Diana said, before she stopped speaking to think, something that, upon reflection, she didn't often do. "Everything boils down to selfishness. But just because I have self-esteem doesn't mean that I don't respect you. And it doesn't mean that—that I don't need you, or want to be your friend."

For a moment, May just stood in silence. When she finally spoke, Diana saw that her breathing was shallow and rapid. "B-but you don't need me," she said. "Nobody ever needs me."

"I do."

"You were doing fine with Christine and Yoshio! I'm—I'm not _unique_ in any way," May said, eyes fixed on the floor. The absurdity of the situation forced Diana to stifle a snort. She had forgotten who had come to whom for the comfort.

"Yes," Diana said, "but back on that ship, you were the only one who tried to talk to me—because in the end, more than anyone else, we're stuck in the same boat, all right?"

"B-but," May said, her breathing growing more steady again. "Is that really true?"

"Yeah."

"I-I think I also need you," May said, finally looking Diana in the eye. "I-I don't think that I was all right before I came here. Sometimes I wasn't afraid of death. I think I am now, though. You—you wouldn't take me dying very well, right?"

"Not in the slightest. We're both part of Team Prophet, right?"

"It's nice to hear that," May said.

"Hasn't anyone ever tried telling you that before?"

"T-they tried to in the Inquisition, after General D'Arco started changing things," May said. "But, apart from people who had worked together for a long time, relationships were strictly professional. Nobody could really be distracted by friends when we they needed to juggle heretic investigations in dozens of sectors at the same time. The only people I ever really got to know were Maria D'Arco and Julia Choi, and-and that's just because General D'Arco wanted to know _everyone._ But she understood me. I think she knew that the Inquisition wasn't really healthy for me."

"I'm, uh, sorry for waltzing into the obvious social faux pas like a complete idiot," Diana said, "but…what about your parents?"

"I never knew my father. I haven't spoken to my mother in years."

Diana blinked before saying, "Oh, well that's a surprise. So they're not both dead?"

"That—that's not—it's not _funny,_ " May said, covering her mouth with her hand and doubling over. "That's _terrible._ I—I should be so _angry_ at you right now."

"I'm sorry."

"No, it's—it's all right," May said, sitting back straight again. The humor slowly faded from her eyes. "It all happened years ago anyways. It hardly matters now. But, uh, i-it's good to see you acting normally. I didn't really have to ask you if anything was wrong when I walked in and you didn't immediately start being needlessly sarcastic towards me."

"Good to know," Diana said, smiling. "Thank you for showing up."

"I didn't really do anything."

"No," Diana said. "You did. Even if it's not permanent, even if I'll get scared and lonely and gloomy all over again, you'll still be here, right?"

May nodded quickly. "Yes, of course."

"Then _thank you_ , and don't deny it this time."

"All right."

Diana remembered talking to Akira in the engine room. Then, she didn't really understand what the rest of the war was going to be like. But then, fear had still been distant and manageable, while now it roared loud enough to drown out everything else. Fear didn't dominate Akira though, did it, even though _she_ admitted that she had been lonely as well. People like Christine and Yoshio hardly had any time for fear, so she wanted to know how the people who were all too susceptible to its icy grip managed. Akira _had_ managed.

She was the Servant of the Goddess of Hope, wasn't she? _Hope_ was the word engraved on the tallest pillar erected in the hearts of every single citizen of the Hierocracy upon indoctrination. It wouldn't hurt to try having some. Even if the predominantly rational parts of her brain told her that it probably _wouldn't_ get better, pure hope was never based on rationality.

"Hey," Diana said, "do you _want_ things to get better?"

May started lightly in surprise at the unexpected question. "I-I don't know. If it's not going to happen anyways…"

Diana shrugged. "I mean, just considering that our situation is so great in the first place, I realize that it might be considered extravagant for us to want things to get better, just once. And what do we stand to lose by wanting, anyways? What does _anybody?_ "

"I guess," May said. "I-it's just, there was once this time when I would tell you _no,_ I don't care if it gets better, b-because I didn't know if I deserved anything good to happen to me. I think I still catch myself thinking like that."

"Well, you'd better not let _me_ catch you."

"All right, Diana."

Diana felt a telepathic ping from her communicator. Quickly, she read the message and smiled once she was done.

"Hey," she said, "Wanna meet a friend of mine?"

"Huh?"

"She's from the Hearth," Diana said, "and was wondering what I had been up to after the skirmish. Apparently, we're going to be having some time off to spend. Reinforcements are finally starting to pour in from the forts world around Himmelsschloss into the outer colonies, but they sent the ships over understaffed, so there are going to be lots of transfers going on, some of which, coincidentally, involve moving most of the magical girl staff over to the new ships for boarding defense. So, that aside, Akira wants to hang out."

"O-oh," May said. "What's she like? Will she mind?"

"She's cool," Diana said. "She won't mind one bit."

When she smiled, Diana noted, it didn't really make May any prettier, mostly because every time she did so, the motions were always understated and awkwardly executed. Still, though, it was good to see her do it.

"I'll go."

-x-

"You asked for me, my Lord?"

"Yes," Yoshio said, sitting straight-backed in his chair. He had found a room used by visiting heads of state—rooms which he typically liked to avoid—vacated, and had decided to requisition it as his temporary "study," by which he meant that a few of his more interesting texts were scattered about the room. The _point,_ he had told Christine, who had laughed once she had seen the place, was to make a formal setting for Captain Liang. Anything else would be unacceptable. "I am curious. Why did you request my presence on the bridge during the battle?"

"I was interested in your presence aboard my ship, my Lord. It is not every day that I am graced by the presence of a Prophet."

"So you decided to summon me once the battle began, but could not do so any time sooner?"

Liang was silent.

"I've checked the access logs for my file. I can do that, of course, because I am the brother of the highest authority known to humanity, and I have not yet fallen out of favor with the Hierocracy data-keepers. You seem to be especially interested in me, Captain. So, I ask again, now that we are on somewhat equal terms: _why?_ "

Yoshio was too engaged to really consider that he and Captain Liang were butting heads far too often for their relationship to be regarded as anything professional. If Diana had been there, she would have made some snide comment about repressed patriarchal tendencies, but Diana was not there, so Yoshio and Liang were free to wave dicks at their leisure.

Liang sighed. "All right. You want to know the truth?"

"If you would be so kind."

"The motivation was to garner favor with you. If I brought you to the bridge, the worst case scenario would be your incompetence, in which case I could easily shut you up and send you away. But I have read about your studies, and your tutors, and I have examined the psychological profile that the Inquisition has on you."

"Wait, _what—"_

"Oh, I'm sorry. Hasn't your sister mentioned the profile?"

Yoshio silently fumed, resolving to confront Haruka about the matter later.

"Anyways," Captain Liang said, "in the _best_ case scenario, I saw within you the ridiculous and impossible. Any sane man would think me stupid, or worse, naïve. After all, you have had no experience, which is, in the end, the ultimate deciding factor in success or failure. You revert to your basic levels of practice, which, for you, did not exist until today."

It was Yoshio's turn to be silent.

"You want to be useful," Captain Liang said. "So do us all. Whatever we're devoted to—a loved one, religion, a cause—anybody with the tiniest shred of ambition wants to be _useful,_ whether to themselves or to something greater. You have to ask yourself, my Lord, to what you want to be useful."

"Mankind, of course. Am I not the Prophet, herald of the Goddess, ultimate ally of humanity? What else am I meant to serve?"

Liang shrugged. "Perhaps it is a matter of perspective. You are the Prophet by birth, but the question is—what are you by your acts? If I gave you the vehicle to exercise those acts, I would gain myself a potentially very powerful ally."

Yoshio snorted. "We're _allies?_ "

"Well, we might not like each other very much," Captain Liang said, lips curling, "but if you were forced to ask anyone in the Armada for a favor, who would you ask?"

"Fair enough."

"Well, my Lord," Liang said, crossing his legs, "I'm sure we've established sufficient ground in these proceedings to continue to your actual purpose for calling me here. What will it be?"

Yoshio reached for a ceramic tea pot. "Excuse me," he said, pouring himself a cup. He noted, with some distaste, that he had, first of all, inherited the habit from his sister, and, second of all, that he was doing it solely to calm his nerves. "Would you like some?"

"Please."

Despite his initial trepidation, Yoshio was pleased that his hands remained steady as he poured the tea.

After taking a sip and feeling the warm liquid slosh about in his mouth, Yoshio placed his palms flat against the table. "I would like to humbly request that you accept me as your first officer aboard this vessel."

Liang burst out laughing. It took all of Yoshio's willpower not to demand a more serious response. The task was made more difficult by the fact that dejection was rapidly draining whatever reserves of willpower he had in the first place.

"I'm afraid, my Lord," Liang said, his laughter dying down, "that you will have to do better than that."

Yoshio ground his teeth together. "Please explain." Liang looked to be enjoying himself far too much for Yoshio to not be acutely offended.

" _My first officer,_ " Liang said. "I'm sorry, but the irony bites too deep. You must realize the unique position that you find yourself in. Truthfully, there are not very many people in this fleet who can claim to be that much more experienced than you. There are _very few_ people in this fleet who possess the same instincts you do. The only remaining question is whether or not you can _lead,_ and I am willing to invest."

"I don't understand."

Captain Liang sighed, shaking his head. "Please, my Lord," he said, clucking his tongue, "in twelve hours reinforcements arrive. Now, the fleets under the Lord Admirals are still concerning themselves with the defense and the maintenance of order within the sectors most firmly under Earth's control."

"I know that," Yoshio said, cutting Captain Liang off. "It's only been a couple weeks, and we haven't completely mobilized yet. What's your point?"

"Even a veteran of a heretical uprising faces roughly even odds against a demon swarm as a cadet fresh out of an academy does," Captain Liang said. "They are a new and strange enemy. That being the case, the reinforcements are mostly staffed with green officers. I guessed that the vast majority of them would prove amenable to a little re-ordering in the command structure—even the lucky _mahou shoujo_ who got to command the jewel of the incoming fleet."

Yoshio's eyes widened. "A dreadnought? _Here?"_

"Officially, this frontline defense force is under Lord Admiral Leopold of Mercy's command," Captain Liang said. "While her forces prepared themselves, a relatively smaller contingent was sent forth to bolster us. That is the reinforcement. She sent her fastest, readiest ships, and nothing outruns a dreadnought. The _Mercy_ is still back in the core sectors. We get the _Maelstrom,_ fresh out of Martian orbital dry docks."

Realization slowly dawned on Yoshio. "So…"

"I pulled a few connections," Captain Liang said. "It was much easier to do, given the status of my beneficence's recipient. I feel that you have much, much better things to do than stay on this ship. I, quite frankly, would much rather have a first officer with whom I would _not_ constantly quarrel."

"I—I would be perfectly content with such a position," Yoshio said, before he began furiously backpedaling, "but I will graciously accept—"

Captain Liang waved a hand. "Please," he said. "Enough. You assume command of the _Maelstrom_ effective immediately upon the vessels' arrival in-orbit. Prepare yourself. Don't worry yourself too much about protocol. I'm only a Captain of common blood, not even a _mahou shoujo_ , and my vessel is but a humble destroyer— but you would be astounded at the sorts of things that I can get away with."

"Y-yes."

"Well, then," Captain Liang said, sliding a tiny box over to Yoshio, "with your permission, I will take my leave."

Yoshio swallowed. "Yes."

Liang took a gloved hand from behind his back and extended it. "Sir?"

When grasping the hand, Yoshio made sure that his grip was firm. "I am forever indebted to you, Captain."

Liang's smile was a bit too smug as he slid a small box over to Yoshio. "Very good, sir."

After Liang had left the room, Yoshio opened the box, no longer trying to hide his trembling fingers. Inside were the pins of a Rear Admiral.

Yoshio slid his Prophet's ring off his finger and let it fall to the floor with a tiny clatter. Then he leaned back in his chair and let a wide smile take over his face.

-x-

Diana and May watched from afar as Akira and another Hearth member busied themselves over a holographic video display in the middle of the common room. Video feeds from the ship only showed pale white dots to indicate the incoming battleships, but because the ships were making a pass around Blue Harvest's moon as they joined the fleet, infrastructure satellites got a pretty good view of the reinforcements.

The magical girls and normal human soldiers lining the walls of the room gave Diana fleeting glances, as always. Diana was slowly growing used to them, and the Armada was getting used to her. Everyone had business more personally significant than the newest religious celebrity.

May didn't seem to mind the crowd much, her posture relaxed as she leaned against the wall. "I'm envious," she said.

"Of Akira?"

"She's…happy."

"Well, I have a surprise for her, anyways," Diana said, grinning at May's questioning expression. "You know how she was fangirling about the dreadnought?"

"It makes sense," May said. "Those things have the most complex engine-FTL systems, don't they?"

Diana nodded. "You've heard about Yoshio, right?"

"Rear Admiral Kaname, yes."

"I got a word in to him," Diana said. "I've gathered that for younger Hearth members, working on a Dreadnought is a pretty rare opportunity, so I figured that I might as well help her out."

May smiled. "That's pretty nice of you."

Diana hummed in response. _Yeah,_ she thought. _I guess it is._

"So," Akira said, addressing the crowd, "this is kinda the middle of nowhere, so we had to jury rig the projector. I _think_ the thing works, but, we'll see right…"

With a tiny buzzing noise, the projector hummed out.

"…now!" Akira said, beaming. "Now, on the boring ships, they don't have this setup, do they? No, they don't. "

"By the way," Diana muttered. "About what we were talking about earlier with Akira, you two haven't convinced me. I've seen the statistics."

"What?"

"Incubators don't select for lesbianism."

May blinked. "Bullshit."

"I'm not kidding. I asked Mephis in my free time."

May shook her head. "I _really_ don't think that's true."

"Whatever," Diana said.

"Oh," May said. "That reminds me. Remember Feraxis?"

Diana's eyes flicked upwards to the ceiling as she tried to remember. "Yeah. The separatist world?"

"The Inquisition thinks that it'd be a good idea to scout the place out," May said. "And the Armada, for once, agrees. Once we transfer onto the _Maelstrom,_ we're headed out there next. The main miasma front also seems to be shifting towards Feraxis-controlled space."

"Do you have any idea what it's going to be like?" Diana asked.

"This entire sector is…Lyudian," May said. "Culture is very different, I guess. I don't really have that much experience. Some Lyudians are intensely loyal to the Hierocracy, even with their different religion. O-others are not."

A murmur ran through the crowd. "Hey," Diana said, pointing at the display. "Check it out."

Ships began appearing on the display. As they drew nearer, the growing light from their engines heralded their arrival. Given that the ships weren't in battle, they arranged themselves far more compactly than they would be in combat formation, so they could watch as the ships closed in next to each other.

A motley assortment of small, nimble destroyers, planetary bombardment cruisers and larger battleships gradually streamed across the display. Each one shared the same basic design: a long, thin, cylinder, capped on one end with an engine array. Up and down the length of the ships, hexagonal rings had apertures marking the position of the laser cannons. The battleships sported additional curves and ridges to house extra firepower. Diana had read what artists had to say about the structures of the Hierocracy's ships. They were pillars, solid and firm, and now, watching them stream by, one after another, Diana couldn't disagree.

The holographic image flickered for a moment, making Akira frown. For the next minute, the flickering persisted, while the image gradually grew brighter and brighter, blurring the outlines of the other ships.

"Is this stupid thing broken?" she asked, lightly drumming her fingers against the display machine. Abruptly, her fingers stopped moving, and a smile of realization came across Akira's face. "Oh. _Oh._ "

A murmur ran through the crowd. "What is it?" someone asked.

"We gotta switch to another satellite."

As Akira began fiddling with the device, Diana turned to May. "You know what's going on?" May shrugged.

A minute later and the device was back online. "Ladies and gentlemen," Akira said, turning away from her work. "I present to you what I'm pretty sure is…"

This time the image was from a satellite much farther away from the fleet than the last one. It became immediately obvious what the issue had been.

"…the _Maelstrom._ "

The light from the engines, which were only now beginning to dim, was so bright that it obscured the profiles of ships too close to it. Only from a distance was it possible to make out the full size of the dreadnought. But even with a grainy, low-resolution image of the vessel, the _Maelstrom_ still made the jaws of the uninitiated drop.

Akira sidled up next to Diana. "You've never seen one of these beautiful things outside of the videos, have you?"

Silently, Diana shook her head.

"Class IIs have been in service for thirty years, now. It's kinda hard to obsolete 'em."

"Can't imagine why," Diana muttered.

Running down the length of the dreadnought was the same cylinder that the rest of the vessels shared, except much, much, larger. Hearth engineers had dug up FTL drive and engine blueprints only possible on paper because of space and energy requirements and used them to fuel the newest war machine of the Hierocracy. Then, with a fervent worshipping of "superior firepower" that would make Armada gunners blush, the Hearth had stripped everything but the drives and engines from the main body. Everything else had to go in two massive backwards swept wings that jutted out from the sides of the dreadnought, terminating just past the engines. Coincidentally, the wings provided the surface area for a point defense array five times larger than that of a battleship, meaning that a dreadnought only had to park itself in the general vicinity of boarding crafts or fighter swarms to blow them all to hell. It did not matter if the first turret missed, because the other four guns trained on any given target would probably not. In-and-done boarding runs were made that much riskier, and the age of close-range fighters, bigger targets than boarding crafts to accommodate weapons systems but not big enough to have decent shielding, died with the advent of the dreadnought.

Just looking at the profile of a dreadnought was sufficient to deduce the purpose of the main cylinder, and why everything but the drive and engine had been removed. Nestled in the front end of the ship was an aperture, so large that it effectively hollowed out the tip of the cylinder. The basic design of the Winepress laser cannon had not been changed in decades, because it still did what it had to do perfectly fine, and the mere appearance of a Class II dreadnought was still enough to make the smaller heretic fleets surrender on sight.

"You know," Akira said, her voice unusually sober, "what I think when I see one of those and know that it's on my side?"

"What?"

"That we're going to be fine."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pew pew, space fights.


	5. A Favorable Reference to Hashal

"Christine, come on, smile a bit. This thing's cool," Akira said. Her arms were sprawled out behind her, resting on the back of her seat.

"Why is it painted _black?"_ Christine asked. She had been frowning for some time.

"T-to intimidate."

Christine's frown deepened. "We're landing in a loyalist-controlled area. I don't see why we would need to intimidate anyone."

"I think she has a point," Diana said. "Don't want to scare off all three loyalists on the face of this planet, do we?"

"F-fine," May said, crossing her arms. "But don't blame me. I didn't design the things. And it's not _my_ fault that you leave everything below orbit to _us._ "

"Because we already control everything above orbit," Christine said. "Why come down when we can just blast away from above?"

May sighed. "Why do we still even have these arguments?"

"Because you're both stubborn to an unhealthy degree," Diana said. Akira nodded along with her.

A bit of Christine's previously-held confrontational stance melted away. After a moment, she spoke again: "Okay, it does look pretty cool."

May smiled.

High above one of the very few loyalist strongholds on Feraxis, the Inquisitional Reaper drone silently made its way down to the surface. The Reaper's chassis was vertically compressed, giving it an appearance similar to a stingray. The Armada had little business in the perpetually dim streets of Shivan black market hives or the incessant planet-scale conflicts plaguing Xinjiang sectors, so the lower-case "i" of the Inquisition was painted on the underside of the vessel.

Below the Reaper, miles and miles of empty nothingness zoomed past. If Diana were to look out the window, Feraxis would score an 11. Simply put, there was nothing the Hierocracy could do to keep the fringes of its empire on the same levels of modernity as the core sectors. The most advanced machinery a colonist would usually see, save for a Shivan, would be Armada military equipment.

"Hey," Diana said, leaning in closer to Akira. The engine made her words inaudible to the vehicle's other inhabitants. "You didn't have to come down, you know."

"You guys needed four people, and I was on the ship," Akira said, shrugging. "Why not?"

"I don't know. I hear rebels can be bad for your health."

Akira rolled her eyes. "We go in, get info, come back."

"I know. It's so simple, right?" Diana said. " _What could possibly go wrong?"_

"One day," Akira said, shaking her head, "you will learn to be less pessimistic."

-x-

When they landed, the Lyudian population gave the Reaper drone a very wide berth. After seeing the look in May's eyes, Diana decided not to comment.

A sizeable portion of the Inquisitional complex was underground, in a vain attempt to guard against orbital bombardment, so much of the surface was left open to the elements. A lone Inquisitional agent went on to greet them, a dark figure ghosting across the dusty ground. She made brief eye contact with May and inclined her head slightly.

As the agent drew nearer, her face clicked in Diana's mind. They had met on Earth, at the Goddess' Seat.

_Uh, her name?_

_Julia Choi,_ May answered. _Come on, Diana._

_Sorry._

"Long time no see, May," Julia said. Her voice was low and raspy, and Diana had to strain to hear it over the whispering of the wind.

"I-I didn't know that you were going to be here," May said. Diana noticed that her eyes were trained about an inch below Julia's.

"Maria has taken personal interest in the situation. I'm here as an advance agent."

Christine stiffened. "D'Arco is coming?"

"That would be General D'Arco, Lieutenant McDonnell," Julia said, narrowing her eyes.

"Right," Christine said, coughing.

 _Goddess, why? Why?_ Diana thought to Akira. _The shield that guards humanity is comprised of petty teenaged girls. We're all_ fucked.

Akira shrugged and made the universally recognized "oh well" gesture.

"S-so," May said. "What are the specifics of the mission?"

"In the interest of security, General D'Arco has convinced the Prophet-Queen to authorize Armada action on this planet. Cruisers are going to enter orbit and destroy the last vestiges of resistance. Until then, we target previously located heretic hives and take whatever captives and information we can. Briefings will be sent to your communicators. Operations on this planet have been fairly limited for some time, so you don't have that much to work off of."

May smiled. "As always."

"Indeed," Julia said, returning the smile. "Anyway, you ladies are early. Your operations begin at nightfall. We, that is, the three agents on-base at the moment, offer you the sincerest Inquisitional hospitality you'll find anywhere in this system. Make yourselves at home."

Julia muttered something into her communicator. A second later, an entrance opened in the ground with a loud, grinding noise, revealing rusty stairs leading down into the earth.

When Diana saw the inside of the Inquisitional "base," she had to work hard not to cringe. Just because, she thought, the Inquisition held the nicest part of what was presumably a hellhole of a planet didn't make it any less terrible.

Flickering emergency lighting strips adorned the ceiling, things that Diana had _never_ seen outside of a war movie, not even when she was serving in the _actual_ war. There was real _paint_ peeling off the pock-marked walls, another novelty. The air smelled of garbage and poorly ventilated machinery, compounding the slight headache that Diana had developed.

 _Get used to it,_ Akira said. _Last time I checked one of the Inquisition's hidey-holes, it was pretty much the same._

_Seriously? Why?_

Akira bit her lip. _You know their budget is pretty limited._

_Yeah, but this is insane. Not worse than a miasma pocket, but shit, this is pretty bad._

_I know. But, knowing the few Inquisitional people I've met, the only thing they want less than your prejudice is your pity._

Diana's eyes flickered over to May. _I can imagine._

Julia turned to them. "I don't suppose you've eaten yet?"

 _Do not accept Inquisitional food,_ Christine said. Diana could not hear a hint of jest in her voice. _It is the worst thing._

"Uh, it's fine," Diana said.

A small smirk danced across Julia's lips. "All right."

 _It feels kinda rude to just do that,_ Diana said. _You sure…_

 _You really do not want to try their food,_ Christine said. As an afterthought, Christine turned to look over her shoulder. When her eyes passed over the empty space where Julia and May had been standing only a few seconds previously, she sighed.

"They're gone," she said.

"Did they just turn invisible?" Diana asked, blinking in surprise.

"Inquisitional agents do that when they're on their own turf."

Akira raised a hand to her mouth to suppress a yawn. "Man, Inquisitional hideouts never have anything to _do._ "

"We can wait," Christine said.

"That's _all_ we can do."

Christine shrugged. "The Inquisition still remembers how ordinary war worked: killing other people and a lot of waiting."

"We're not ordinary soldiers, Christine," Akira said. "Even the soldiers who aren't magical girls aren't _ordinary._ We all have a connection with the Goddess."

Christine's eyes flitted around the empty room before she shrugged and sat down.

"So," Akira said, filling in the empty space of conversation once again, "how've you been?"

"Good," Christine said automatically. Diana glanced at the pair of magical girls. Even though Akira had said that the two of them had known each other in the past, she had never seen Christine speak to Akira before. She had never really seen Christine speak to _any_ acquaintances _,_ really, beyond the standard polite acknowledgements.

Akira smiled lightly. "Nice to hear," she said. "You still remember me, right?"

Christine nodded. "Oh, I remember everything."

"Everything?"

Christine fixed Akira with an emotionless stare. "You know after what you did, training facilities had to change regulations during practice demon hunts afterwards, right? I was actually impressed."

Akira blushed. "Well, you didn't have to remember _that_ much."

"Oh, come on," Diana said, rolling her eyes. "Whatever stupid shit you did, it was probably spectacular enough that a couple of the girls got traumatized. The Goddess herself might have shed a tear."

Christine's mouth, previously set in a hard line, twitched upwards slightly. "You have no idea."

Even though Christine's expression was subtle, Akira still pouted.

"Anyways," Christine said, "it really is good to see you again."

The pout disappeared from Akira's face, to be replaced by a beaming smile. "You too. And hey, you smile and speak openly now!"

"Why is it," Diana said, "that I can so easily imagine you being the quiet type? Was this during your training?"

"Yeah," Akira said. "Pretty much the only times she'd open her mouth would be to bitch at D'Arco."

"I've always been meaning to ask," Diana said. "Why _do_ you and D'Arco dislike each other so much?"

Christine snorted. "Why wouldn't we?"

Diana shrugged. "Just saying, you two are more alike than you'd like to admit—at least, from what I've heard of D'Arco."

"Yeah? How?"

"You're 'dedicated' to your work. I think so, May thinks so, and Yoshio thinks so. D'Arco seems to me to be the exact same type of person. She's found something that she wants to fight for, and then that insanely intense way she fights that fight freaks everyone else out."

"I think that you're implying that D'Arco and I dislike each other out of rivalry."

"Maybe," Diana said. "I dunno."

"Hey, it always seemed that way to me," Akira said.

Christine shook her head. "I can't speak for the rest of the Armada, but someone like D'Arco, who so easily can raise her weapons against other people—the people who are _eager_ to dirty their hands, not just willing—they turn me off, and that's why I don't really trust the Inquisition. There are a _lot_ of people like that in their ranks. I won't lie and pretend that the two of us didn't have some rivalry born out of competition, but it really is the principle of the matter that bothers me."

"Well, you two _also_ got into a fight, so that has to count for something," Akira said, giggling.

"Over principles."

"Hm? I never heard about _that._ "

"You remember the affair about Roberta's mother, right?"

Akira shifted in place, the smile dropping from her face. "Yeah."

"What happened?" Diana asked.

"One of the girls' mothers had been convicted of heresy," Christine said. "Roberta's wish, supposedly, had something to do with the matter. With one or two mysterious disappearances tangentially related to the case, which may or may not have concerned the mother herself—well, you can picture a group of immature magical girlcadets gossiping about it, can't you?"

"Gee, I wonder," Diana said.

"So that's what it was about?" Akira said, shoulders hunched. "I never knew."

"I was there when it happened. This girl whom I never really talked to said _something_ about Roberta's mother, and then D'Arco broke her jaw."

Diana blinked. "Shit. What then?"

"Well, I probably wouldn't have done anything at that point, but the idiot girl tried to fight back, and then _something_ happened inside D'Arco. When she started brutalizing the other girl, I had to step in."

"I can understand why D'Arco would do that," Akira said. " _Her_ father…"

Diana snorted. "Lemme guess—heresy."

"Yes and no. Her father was definitely involved in _something_ with heretics, though he was never outright convicted," Christine said. "Of course, nobody in the Inquisition, D'Arco included, will _ever_ tell you this, but I learned things."

There was silence as Diana chewed her lip. "So?" she finally said. "I mean, this fight sounds pretty serious. Why'd it get so bad?"

"Just because somebody is a bad person doesn't give anybody a warrant to cause them to suffer. If you have some warped sense of justice, then yes, of course it's emotionally appealing. But ultimately what point was there to assault that girl? To establish dominance? It was sickening. People like that who blindthemselves into believing that they're real heroes are disgusting."

Diana shook her head. "Damn. I wonder what _D'Arco_ has to say about _you_ , then."

"Oh, I can imagine," Christine said, crossing her arms. "And either way, she has her vision to back up her self-righteousness."

"Vision?"

Akira sat up. "Oh, wow, you've never heard of it?"

"Nope," Diana said, shaking her head.

"D'Arco's magic," Christine said. "One eye sees the present, and the other sees the future."

"Uh, let's stop waxing poetic and actually describe her powers."

"She has extremely developed precognition," Akira said. "She can see, with, so far, perfect accuracy, what is _going_ to happen around her. What's interesting is that a lot of what she sees is, she claims, what she herself is going to do. Get it?"

Diana hummed. "So, if she saw herself taking a drink of water in five minutes, she would _have_ to take that drink of water."

"Exactly," Akira said. "Because her vision is perfectly accurate, she sees _exactly_ what's going to happen, her own intervention already taken into consideration. You…get what that means, right?"

"If she does it because her vision tells her to do it, and her vision tells her to do it because she does it…" Diana said. She shifted uncomfortably. "Well?"

Christine crossed her arms. "D'Arco says that the root of causality is from the Goddess."

"Huh," Diana said. "I thought _I_ was the only manifestation of the Goddess' will."

"You _are,_ " Christine said. "What D'Arco says is almost heresy."

"Almost?" Diana asked.

"Well, it would be, if anybody else had a better explanation."

-x-

When night fell over the main continent of Feraxis, the Inquisition made its move.

"We have cells scattered throughout the planet. All of them are receiving reinforcements, thanks to the Armada's generous donations," Julia said. "Wait for mymark. We attack simultaneously, take whatever intelligence we can, and then watch as the Armada bludgeons everyone into oblivion."

May nodded at Julia's holographic projection. "All right."

The projection disappeared.

Wind howled around Diana's ears. She lay prone, alongside Christine and May, against the roof of a dilapidated two-story apartment. Their vantage point overlooked a presumably abandoned warehouse.

"Hey, May?"

"Yes?"

Diana gestured at the warehouse below. "Why are we doing this? I mean, I know we have to. But why are there secessionists in the first place?"

"It's a trend of history," Christine said. "As soon as an empire gets large enough, it begins to break up. Political theorists saw this coming centuries before humanity actually managed to expand to the stars. Some degree of anarchy is inevitable."

May nodded. "W-well, look at it from the viewpoint of a colonist. If aliens were to magically appear, their picture of the average human would be some sort of Himmelsschloss clergyman, right? Most living humans revolve around that sort of lifestyle. But, for a colonist, that view is offensive. Their culture developed with a lag time of nearly a hundred years before better FTL drives developed, which was a pretty large split between Earth and the colonies already."

Diana had been told the stories of the early colonists in school. Their lives had seemed depressingly isolated. Wasn't it easy to go insane, cut off from all human civilization? To know that there was a bold, new human government—just very, very, far away, and nothing like what they had originally left?

"The Hierocracy has always considered the colonies part of its jurisdiction," May said. "The closer colonies assimilated easily into Earth's culture. The further ones, uh, didn't. And the Hierocracy didn't really take the religious sects well. It's a fundamental disconnect: Himmelsschloss thinks that every living human being ought to be a loyal member of the Hierocracy, but the colonies don't. They try levying troops and imposing centralized religious doctrine, stamping out centuries of independent religious growth, and then they respond by blowing up a church. Of course the reasons are different from place to place, but that's basically it."

Graffiti scratched on the walls below Diana caught her eye. It depicted a man, uncannily similar to the demons. A white halo circled the back of the figure's head. Diana was reminded of the Goddess' Seat.

Schools didn't usually teach their students about Hashal, but everybody knew about the strange Lyudian deity and of his religion, Domersek.

The trio sat in silence. Diana noticed May shivering in the cold out of the corner of her eye. Her small frame didn't seem to be putting up very well with the night air.

Christine put a hand on May's shoulder. Warm light glowed for a moment, and May stopped shivering.

"T-thanks."

"It's just a trick I picked up."

"C-could you teach me? Later?

Christine smiled. "Of course."

"You know, I-I'm sorry for snapping at you when we first met," May said. She placed a hand across her face and started messing with her bangs. "I never got a chance to say so because of the demon fight, but I really am."

Diana made brief eye contact with May before she looked away. Of course sometimes Diana couldn't help but insert her unwanted, sarcastic view into the conversation, but now was really not the time.

"You don't have to apologize. I was being pretty rude," Christine said.

"I-I guess."

"When this is all over, General D'Arco is welcome to have you stay a bit longer."

May's mouth opened a bit in surprise. "Thank you."

Diana breathed in the cool air. In this middle-of-nowhere colony, the air tasted different. She didn't know if she was registering the absence or addition of some flavor, but either way, she felt refreshed.

If she had to give an ideal picture of happiness, nowhere in that picture would she be lying on a rooftop stalking heretics. But, strangely, Diana could feel the demons slipping out of her mind. Diana had no misconceptions on what kept her very human brain going: approval and sympathy were great motivators. Humans were fundamentally lonely, weren't they? That's why she needed friends.

"Originally, I wasn't going to join the Inquisition," May said.

Christine blinked. "Really? Why not?"

"My mother had almost disappeared from my life when the Incubators came for me. I never knew my father. My mother couldn't really handle being a single parent. She juggled different jobs for various Xinjiang employees, and she never really bothered to talk to me."

May was revealing something about her that Diana was reasonably certain she hadn't shown anyone else. Maybe D'Arco knew, but Inquisitional Generals probably weren't outright told much of what they learned. Still, May kept her face low and hid it with her bangs. Diana couldn't tell what May thought even as May told them who she was. The experience was rather disconcerting.

"I wished for my mother to love me," May said. "It worked. She stopped pursuing her life outside me. The whole thing played out like a giant cliché. Of course, at first everything was wonderful. My mother was an entirely new person. I didn't miss the old one—that was thepoint. But as I got to know the new mother, completely defined by her love for me, I realized something."

Diana quickly glanced over to Christine. If Christine had been exhibiting some simple emotion, like sympathy, understanding what she was thinking would've been simple. But Christine's face was practically a mask given how hard it was for Diana to read it.

"There wasn't anyone left in my mother. I hadn't changed her. I had killed her. She spent all of her time for me, so she became a mess. Worst of all, I realized that I didn't want her pity. As she started defining herself in terms of her love for me, I didn't have any choice but to define myself by those same terms. It didn't matter that I was a magical girl. In both our eyes, I was an invalid. My soul gem started darkening."

What would that have been like? Living on some Xinjiang colony, which was definitely at least an eight or higher on the middle-of-nowhere scale, stuck with somebody that she had bound to herself? The irony, of course, was that May held all the blame. The clichés played out the same way, didn't they?

"Disappearing would have been difficult if I had joined the Armada. The Inquisition made it much easier. And, at that point, I wouldn't have really fit in with the Armada anyway. So I…took care of things and left."

Both Christine and Diana were silent for some time. Diana was well aware that both of them had been born into relative privilege compared to many of the Hierocracy's inhabitants. Christine, of course, had been born into one of the very highest seats of privilege as part of the Himmelsschloss nobility, and Diana had the good fortune of living a normal life. Her family had never been poor and nobody had ever abused her. She had always lived close to the Hierocracy's center of welfare.

"Do you still think about her?" Christine asked.

"I try not to," May said. "I couldn't form any relationships in the Inquisition, just like I couldn't form a relationship with her. I don't…"

May's voice trailed off into choking silence. The air grew heavy as May turned her head away from Christine and Diana. Even though Diana couldn't see her face, she had a fairly good idea of what May was feeling.

"You have us," Diana said.

May closed her eyes. "Thank you."

Julia's hologram appeared hovering over their communications device. "We're moving."

"Right," Christine said, after walking over to the hologram. "I'll report after we're done."

"The Hearth technician you brought with you will provide you with information. Good luck."

As the hologram disappeared, Christine turned around to speak. "We have to go now."

That was the life of a _mahou shoujo,_ wasn't it? No matter what they felt, a battle would always be waiting around the corner. Emotion's boundaries were defined by near-constant warfare, whether against questionably guilty human beings or eldritch space demons.

"May?" Christine asked. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah."

"Hey," Diana said, "we have you, right?"

May smiled. "Yes."

Three short flashes of light later, the magical girls had transformed into their costumes. They jumped from the building they had been waiting on one by one.

As Diana walked towards the entrance of the warehouse, she glanced behind her. "So," she said, "subtle or not-so-subtle?"

Christine bounced her sword in her hand. "You know me."

"I'm fine with whatever you do," May said.

"All right," Christine said, stepping up to the entrance. Her sword crashed down, and the doors blew upon. At once, Diana extended her wings, filling the entire warehouse with light.

Some of the rebels dropped their weapons immediately and ran. Others took aim and began to fire. Diana was struck by how fragile in comparison to the demons ordinary humans seemed to be. If she concentrated on one man's face, she could see the subtle oscillation of expressions—surprise, fear, confusion, fear, anger, fear.

To the rebels, Diana was a blur as she darted around their plasma fire and let loose a storm of arrows, knocking weapons out of their hands and pinning them to the wall. She wasn't ready to do business the Inquisitional style yet, and, against ordinary humans, no difficult choices were being imposed.

Next to her, Christine and May cleaned up the remnants of the rebels, subduing and capturing as many as they could. Diana was about ready to relax when she heard a distant _thud,_ followed by the wall of the warehouse exploding.

_They have armor._

_Thank you, Christine,_ Diana said, using her wings to dart for cover. As she notched her arrow, she pulled it back until the bow seemed about ready to snap.

At the last second, she aimed a bit to the right of the tank and watched as concrete flew into the air, raining down on the tank. In the distance, Diana could see rebels hastily clambering out of the tank. _Good for them,_ she thought. What business did the rebels have with heavy ground vehicles, anyways? Most of it was ancient, what with the Inquisition having a hold on all sub-orbital combat hardware.

"Armada reinforcements are entering lower orbit," Akira said, speaking over communications. "Do you need a cruiser to sweep on by and deploy some antimatter?"

"Everything down here's taken care of," Christine said.

"Good to hear," Akira said. "Say, have you guys noticed anything strange about this place?"

All three magical girls gave negative answers. Diana glanced around in confusion and was met by similarly puzzled looks.

"Let's face it: right now, the Hierocracy is barely holding onto contested territory, thanks to the demons. But, out of all the systems declaring independence, Inquisition funnels money, drones, and its top agents into this planet. Yeah, the Armada needed a foothold, but come on, the Inquisition is supposed to gather intelligence. We don't _need_ intelligence from this planet. All we need to know is where to shoot to clear the ground so that we can land. And, to top it off, D'Arco herself is coming?"

May flinched as Diana and Christine turned to look at her. "General D'Arco keeps a lot of secrets," she said. "If she's discovered something that she thinks is important, she will be the only one who knows."

"The Servant herself is down on this planet," Christine said, "instead of out there fighting demons. She managed to exert this much influence over the Armada? How important is this?"

"Well, our job is to gather information," May said, walking to an incapacitated woman. Diana noted the lack of any magical girls amongst the rebels. All of them were too old, and, she reflected, and probably too jaded. The Hierocracy had a pretty solid monopoly on magical girls—faith and hope appealed pretty strongly to teenage girls. But still, who could say that none of these women were mothers, with daughters that they might have to worry about later?

As May knelt by the woman, Diana felt her telepathic sense tingling. _Something_ was happening, but she wasn't quite sure _what._

May quietly strapped a communications device to the woman's head and moved on to the next. At Diana and Christine's querying looks, she said, "Interrogation."

Realization flashed across Christine's face. "Compulsions?"

"Yes." May's expression certainly didn't invite further elaboration.

May had "taken care" of business on her homeworld, hadn't she? To Diana, matters suddenly made much more sense.

After the captives were finished spilling whatever information they had into the devices, May collected them and relayed the information to Inquisitional headquarters. That left the business of cleanup, which a pair of Reaper drones parked outside the warehouse addressed. Inquisitional agents, normal humans this time, moved out and began dragging their prisoners onto the drones.

Above her, Diana could make out the faint silhouettes of low-orbit cruisers, and higher still, she knew the Maelstrom lurked, which could, at a moment's notice, reduce a city on the surface of the planet to dust. She felt a sudden chill. When the demons had first attacked, Diana hadn't expected the rebels to factor in so heavily. But hadn't D'Arco and Yoshio seen this coming?

Was the war really going to be a clean and dry fight for survival? If it was, what was at stake was exceedingly obvious: fight, or run and die. Very special cowards chose the second option. Never since the First War had the magical girls been more deserving of their mythological role: mankind's savior, servants of the goddess' will to deliver humanity from despair.

The Inquisition was different. It lurked in the shadows, hunting for the heretics. To the Hierocratic citizen, traitors were about as foreign as possible. All her life, the importance of duty to the Goddess had been impressed upon Diana. To serve her was to beat back the darkness that perpetually lurked at the corners of mankind's empire. To serve the Hierocracy, whether as a member of the military _,_ a member of the clergy, or simply through the rituals of obedience and prayer, was the closest the ordinary human could come to being a _mahou shoujo._ When every single person Diana had ever known shared those beliefs and values, comprehending what somebody who actively resisted thought was impossible.

She had joked about it with Yoshio, yes, but only had the sketch of a caricature of an actual idea of the heretic's _identity._ A demon was simple; it wanted mankind to fall to despair. But what about a heretic? Who was a heretic, and what did the heretic want?

The Inquisition had been fighting space aliens long before the demons arrived.

"Hey, Christine?" Akira said. "I've got news."

"Yes?"

"Maria D'Arco's here."

-x-

Yoshio's quarters on the _Maelstrom_ were soundproof. Not every Lord Admiral had a soundproof room, not every cardinal or general had a soundproof room, and not every room on the _Maelstrom_ was soundproof, but every Prophet who ever lived had a soundproof room.

That was just the way things were.

Yoshio examined the map before him. This one was large-scale and two-dimensional, depicting all the Hierocracy's holdings. In the center was Earth, surrounded by the most developed worlds and the fort sectors guarding the heart of the Hierocracy. Ships were beginning to flow away from the forts, but the process was still ongoing.

The demons were concentrated at the Lyudian fringes of the Hierocracy. A cluster of systems served as a chokepoint to the rest of Lyudian space, and then to the core of the Hierocracy itself. Clearly, they were in no hurry for any decisive battles yet, otherwise they would have gone "under" the galactic plane and attacked the fort sectors. They were playing a waiting game.

Yoshio frowned. Were they waiting for some sort of advantage? Could demons even think that far ahead?

Either way, the frontier painted a grim picture indeed. Given new and frightening external pressure, the already volatile situation with the heretics was beginning to unravel. D'Arco's work had managed to maintain Inquisitional holds on the colonies, but resistance in a few key areas was growing stronger. The next week, maybe illegal Shivan technology would give rebels the edge. Maybe the near-constant Xinjiang factional conflicts would deny the Hierocracy a key sector. And here, now? Radical Lyudians prevented the Hierocracy from establishing a major presence.

But still, that didn't make much sense. Why _were_ the rebels so brazenly uprising against the Hierocracy when the alternative was the demons? Instead of submitting to the familiar "injustice" of Hierocratic rule, they were surrendering themselves to genocidal monsters.

Yoshio brought up another window on his desk. A few days after the initial attack at Genesis, the Hearth had sent out a probe into one of the miasma spots. No visual cues denoted the boundary between reality and miasma, but as the probe entered, it seemed to register physically impossible conditions: gravitational fields absent any large bodies of mass, or sound in a vacuum. The Hierocracy hadn't fought battles inside miasma since the First War. Now, the demons were going on the offensive, abandoning their miasma to fight the humans.

 _But what if it were different?_ Yoshio asked himself. Something was making him more and more uncomfortable.

As the probe dived deeper into the miasma, it began encountering demons. When oceanographers had finished mapping the deep seas centuries ago, Yoshio imagined that it would be much like this. The demons swirled around the probe, long, sweeping eels of malice, before the feed cut out.

Even if the Hierocracy endured the coming storm, what if it was mauled? What about the billions that would die? Yoshio thought about his older sister, leader of humanity during the worst crisis in centuries. How would history remember her?

When he had first come aboard the _Maelstrom's_ bridge, it had been a fantasy. Teenage girls dreamed about being a magical girl, and he dreamed about what it would be like to sit above the holographic pit, his officers arrayed before him, standing on the captain's pedestal. Now that he was there, with a weapon of mass destruction at his fingertips, what was he going to do with it?

How would history remember him?

"I've always wondered if there's life after death," Yoshio said. "I've never asked you, though."

"It's a very natural thing for you to wonder about, Yoshio-kun. You're not the first person to have asked."

In the corner of Yoshio's vision, pink hair fluttered in a breeze that wasn't there. He didn't exercise his rights as a direct matrilineal descendant of Kaname Tatsuya very often, but he had just irreversibly altered the course of his life. He figured that some guidance was in order.

"Well? Is there?"

"If you're worried about dying, I make sure to visit Tatsuya-kun's descendants when their time comes. You don't have to be afraid of being alone." When Yoshio looked over, Madoka smiled at him. "You've taken off the ring."

"Yes. Did—did my sister have anything to say about it?" Yoshio asked. He rubbed the spot on his finger where the ring once was. As government and military were to remain separate, prudence dictated that he remove the mark of a Hierocracy clergyman when he took on the role of a military commander.

"Haruka-chan acted surprised when I talked to her," Madoka said. "But she sent you out here for a reason. You've left her to deal with the fallout, but personally, I think she's proud of you."

"And what do you think about it?"

Madoka's smile dimmed. "Yoshio-kun, you know that you don't need to prove anything to anybody."

Yoshio folded his hands and looked down at his reflection on the table. "Is that why I did this?"

"When I was your age, I wanted to prove myself useful too. Thinking back, I caused a lot of my closest friends suffering by doing that, even though all I wanted to do was help. You need to know what you're doing before you decide to sacrifice yourself."

"I know what my wish is," Yoshio said. "I want to protect humanity. I want to show my people that there are heroes who will defend them, not just words. I _can_ lead the people from this ship's bridge. I know it. At that point, shouldn't I just rush forwards?"

"But do you know what the price is?" Madoka asked. "I have seen the suffering that the soldiers who pledge themselves in my name endure. Through all that misfortune, do you trust yourself to not lose your path?"

"I do."

Madoka smiled again. "Well, you certainly sound as if you believe in yourself."

"The pulpit isn't for me. For the first time, I feel like I can do something to help," Yoshio said. He straightened in his seat. "It's refreshing."

"But, you know," Madoka said, "there will be times when you doubt yourself, or stray from your path. Anybody who believes in something has to experience doubt. If you're alone when that happens, you can stumble."

"I have as much faith in my friends as I do in you, Madoka," Yoshio said. "They won't let me down."

"That's good."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

Yoshio drummed his fingers against his desk for a moment. "Why did you choose Diana?"

The pink strands of Madoka's hair rippled as she shrugged. "I didn't, really. Fate chose her to be a powerful magical girl. The Hierocracy is the one that decided on their particular interpretation. All I did…"

"You gave her the wings?"

There was a brief flash of light as Madoka manifested her weapon, the pink rose giving off a faint glow. "And the bow. Homura-chan chose her weapon as a tribute to me. But, as time went on, I realized that humanity needed a reminder of what she had done. I nudge fate here and there to guide the formation of the Servants, but I can't do very much to choose them."

Yoshio chuckled and shook his head. "So is calling her the manifestation of your will one of those little half-truths that we've grown so fond of telling?"

"Homura-chan was the last person I could outright choose to guard hope for a very long time," Madoka said. "But you know history. The other Servants have done a remarkable job of rising to their challenges."

"So what do you think about Diana?"

"She can be very strong, both in her deeds and in her heart," Madoka said. "Maybe even as strong as Homura-chan was. But she doesn't think that she can rise up. She was only a normal girl some time ago, wasn't she?"

Yoshio bit his lip. "I'm worried about her."

Madoka laid a reassuring hand on Yoshio's shoulder. "She is not alone," she said, "which makes her infinitely stronger than she would be if she stood without friends. I trust you not to falter behind her or run too far ahead."

Yoshio nodded, his brow and jawline set in determination. "I won't let you down."

"Well, I wouldn't expect you to," Madoka said. "Even if you don't meet your expectations in reality, I'm sure that your heart will always point in the right direction."

Yoshio flushed as he saw Madoka beaming at him.

"It's always interesting to see how times have changed," Madoka said. "I would have never expected Tatsuya-kun to create something like the Hierocracy."

"Especially because we've distorted what you were originally trying to teach the _mahou shoujo?_ " Yoshio said, a tiny, humorless smile on his face. "I wish I could change that."

"The people will believe what they want to believe," Madoka said. "I believe that nobody, no matter how cruel they are at first, is undeserving of a chance at redemption. I will not judge any _mahou shoujo_ who falls under my care, regardless of what she did in life. But I understand that it's not as practical for you to be so forgiving."

"We've turned you into a tool to control an empire," Yoshio said. "So that the people place their faith in us."

"But Tatsuya-kun united humanity in the face of almost certain extinction, and his daughters led them to the stars. One way or another, whether I remained a vague whisper amongst the _mahou shoujo_ or a symbol that an entire species rallied behind, I was happy so long as people remembered that there was something to believe in. No matter what they call me—hope, the Goddess, Madoka, or sister—it doesn't make a difference.

Yoshio shook his head. "The way things are, though…"

"Do what you feel is right," Madoka said. "I will be behind you every step. Mercy is one of the pillars in Tatsuya-kun's religion, isn't it? If you think the Hierocracy should be a kinder place, then make it one."

The Hierocracy was a machine. Magical girls and battleships and Reaper drones all poured into the forge's vast melting pot, and out of the fire emerged something very different than what came in. Maybe it was a monster. But over the centuries, it had proven very good at using faith to wage war.

"One day," Yoshio said. "But first, we need to defeat the demons."

Yoshio's eyes scanned over the map, noting the huge swath of red denoting the miasma front. "Do you know why this happened? Official reports say that the extraterrestrial miasma cells are the product of an extraordinarily unlucky mutation."

"I have some suspicions," Madoka said, her face hardening. "There is probably more to the situation than what even the most knowledgeable people in the Hierocracy are aware of. But I had thought that humanity had set its darkness aside long ago."

"As long as there is hate, there are demons," Yoshio said. "It has always been humanity's nature to fight against our dark side. That's our cruel fate, isn't it? Humans and demons always have to make an even match. Otherwise, balance is lost."

"I've never believed that hope and despair have to sum to zero."

Yoshio smiled. "I know. I think I've been talking to Incubators too much."

"Regardless, if you want to investigate this war's origins, I'd pay closer attention to the human rebels," Madoka said. "Something is strange about them."

A viewport opened on Yoshio's table, displaying the dark surface of the planet below. "The Lyudians have always been either extremely loyal or disturbingly subversive," he said. "Something about their religion. What would Hashal have to do with the demons, though?"

"From what I know, extremely little. But I don't know everything."

Yoshio stared at Feraxis's surface and pictured the civil war being waged in Hashal's name. "Hashal. The destroyer, the timekeeper, the reaper—what do you know about him? Does the Lyudian's belief in him have any foundation in reality?"

When Madoka didn't answer for some time, Yoshio turned to face her. "Is…something wrong?"

"No," Madoka said, smiling and shaking her head. "The more politically inclined of Tatsuya-kun's children always end up asking these questions. Hashal is very real, but his business is not with humanity, or the magical girls, or even me. To him, I might as well be another mortal."

Yoshio blinked in confusion. "Then…what _is_ his business?"

"The Incubators."

"But—"

"Yoshio-kun," Madoka said. As she straightened her back, light rippled around her form. When she spoke, she was quiet but firm, and Yoshio was reminded that, when dealing with matters not of the mortal world, Madoka had influence that was very far from limited. "Incubators, Hashal—whatever it is, I'll take care of it. You and your friends should guard humanity. Okay?"

"Yes, Madoka."

"And, about the question you asked earlier? If there was life after death?"

Yoshio nodded. "Yes?"

"My wish was to make sure that no _mahou shoujo_ would ever suffer the fate of becoming a witch," Madoka said. "In their final moments, those girls experience the ultimate despair, before I take it away. For many, it would be unfair for me to impose upon them the burden of an afterlife when the relief that so many have been so desperately waiting for is about to come."

Yoshio was familiar with the look that now appeared in Madoka's eyes. He knew that his "aunt" was very, very old, and as she stared back across the centuries to a world that was gone and would never return, she seemed exactly as ancient.

"But, even if I wanted to create some sort of paradise, I couldn't. That wasn't part of my wish. Our souls can meet, so long as the magical girl has a strong enough will. But eventually, everyone has to move on. And really, if there was a heaven, how different would it be? Everyone, including me, would have to move on from there as well. I told you that Hashal was very real. When I was young, his existence troubled me, but I've grown to accept it."

When she made eye contact with him, Yoshio was fairly certain she could detect the note of sympathy in his eyes. "Well," Madoka said, "the things that matter the most have a tendency to stick around anyway."

"W-what?"

"Yoshio-kun, you have enough fun confusing your friends with cryptic references to me," Madoka said. "I get to be mysterious as well, don't I?"

"I-I suppose."

Madoka giggled. As she leaned in towards Yoshio to kiss him on the forehead, she was no longer the Goddess, terrible and mighty, patron deity of magical girls, protector of hope and humanity. The classic pink frills now adorned her figure.

She was just Kaname Madoka.

"Do your best, Yoshio-kun."

"I will."

-x-

_We need to set up a fucking DMZ._

May, Akira, and Diana exchanged nervous glances as Christine and Maria D'Arco engaged in small talk. Quite some time had passed since Diana had heard small talk so obviously staged. Really, dropping the conversation and simply staring at each other in icy silence would have been more genuine.

"So," Christine said. "What brings you here personally? Surely you must have enough faith in your own Inquisition to trust that they can do a competent job by themselves."

Maria smiled. "Of course. But there are confidential matters for me to attend to."

"Those being?"

Maria's smile only grew wider as she spoke. "Well, it wouldn't do for those who aspire to be the shining knights defending the Hierocracy to dirty their hands overmuch in whatever I concern myself with, would it?"

"'Shining knights?' What do you know about me?"

Maria shrugged. "Either way, this is Inquisitional business."

"Yet you request Armada backup and girls."

"Only when the outcome of this fight is to our mutual benefit. I wouldn't dream of asking the Lord Admirals to surrender their precious pocket fleets when nothing would lie in store for them."

Christine snorted. "So I guess whatever's going on now has absolutely nothing to do with anybody besides you?"

_I…I kinda want to interrupt them._

May sighed. _Diana, you know that is an awful idea._

_Yeah. But still, this is uncomfortable to watch._

_Just let them sort it out,_ May said.

Maria's chair clattered as she stood, but her face had the same vaguely detached smile as always. "This discussion is irrelevant," she said. "If you have a complaint, take it up with Rear Admiral Kaname. I will cease my bumbling interference at his command. Otherwise, I will attend to my business. I wish you luck in seeing to your own."

With that, Maria left, leaving Christine behind in Inquisitional headquarters to fume. As she walked, Julia stepped out of the shadows to join her, and the two doubtlessly began to engage in telepathic conversation. Diana watched as the two of them stepped into a Reaper drone and lifted off.

Disregarding her better judgment, Diana took a sidelong glance at Christine. She saw what she expected: Christine's brow furrowed in frustration and her fists clenched in anger.

"You can't just leave her be, can you?" Diana said.

"I'm still trying to determine how somebody like her managed to climb the Inquisitional ranks so quickly."

Diana suppressed a chuckle. "Oh. She technically outranks you, doesn't she?" Christine turned to glare at Diana, only to find her already looking away.

Shaking her head, Christine turned to Akira. "You said that there was something strange about the situation. Aren't you curious to find out what?"

Akira bit her lip. "I don't know. It's pretty much assured that D'Arco means serious business. I wouldn't want to get in her way."

"We wouldn't be getting in her way."

" _Right,_ " Akira said.

"Whatever. D'Arco's trying to cavort about with nothing but her skewed moral compass as a guide. She thinks that she's the hero to save the day, mark my words. Regardless of any of that 'shadow' _bullshit,_ she thinks she's doing what's right and necessary to serve the Hierocracy. She's not going to let the Armada in on any clues, even though we're the ones who cleared the way for her in the first place. May doesn't know what's going on either, so she probably isn't interested in letting her own subordinates know either."

Diana sighed. "You want us to go after her."

"Do you object?"

"Whatever you say, boss. After all, you're the senior."

Christine turned to Akira.

"Look, I don't know," Akira said. "I know you're all about decisive action, but let's think this through. Do we want to stick our necks into something that might very well be an awful idea? I mean, whatever D'Arco's business is, do we want to get involved in it? Me, personally? I'm not an Armada warrior. This is probably over my head."

"Akira, we need someone who knows what they're doing with a Reaper drone."

Akira averted her eyes. "Hey, we've got May, don't we? And anyways, what makes you think I know how to work a Reaper?"

"Because I know you. You must know some tricks."

" _Maybe."_

Christine stepped forwards, a pleading look on her face.

"Fine," Akira said, rolling her eyes.

"Welcome aboard the 'let's indulge Christine's terrible ideas' shuttle," Diana said.

Akira giggled. Crossing her arms, Christine turned away from the two of them and looked at May. "I'm not going to ask you to spy on your own commanding officer."

"W-well," May said, shifting in place, " _technically_ …"

Christine blinked. "Technically what?"

"I-I _guess_ I'm not disobeying any orders i-if I spy on her. B-because she never told me not to. And we're not really _spying_ on her anyways, so…"

The nervous smile on May's face suddenly vanished as her expression grew serious. "But I would really not like to get caught if matters become, um, not-subtle. I-it would be embarrassing. Potentially compromising."

"Understood," Christine said, clapping a hand onto May's shoulder. "We will keep things covert."

"She _says_ that," Diana muttered.

Once again ignoring Diana, Christine turned to Akira. "Do you have any idea where D'Arco might be right now?"

"I…suppose there would be a tracking device on the Reaper she took, but checking the record would be pointless. She's probably disabled it or denied access to the record, which she can do, given that, you know, she's kind of an Inquisitional General," Akira said.

"Is there anything else?" Christine asked.

Akira took a deep breath. "…Yes. When I pulled up the planet's map and checked the zones where magical girls were being sent in, there was this twenty-kilometer circle where absolutely nobody with any Armada ties was deployed. Hell, anybody in the Inquisition below a certain pay-grade was excluded. D'Arco's elite alone were sent in to do or find whatever the fuck, and if I had to guess at where she's heading, I'd pick that spot."

Diana crossed her arms. "It makes sense, but from what I've heard about D'Arco, the 'she knows we know' scenario seems likely. Wouldn't she have kept troop deployment details as confidential as possible?"

"She tried."

"Goddess, is this going to get any of us court martialed?"

Akira shrugged. "Not if we don't get caught?"

"We won't get caught," Christine said. "Akira, do you have the coordinates?"

"Yeah."

"May, can you get us a Reaper drone?"

"Records show that there's an extra one parked in the base hangar."

Christine nodded. "Okay, then, let's move."

As they began walking towards the hangar, Diana caught up with Christine. While she had agreed easily, despite the sarcasm, to Christine's plan, she still held some misgivings. But Christine _was_ the senior, wasn't she? The most experienced, the best fighter, and the one with the clearest judgment?

_You're not doing this for personal reasons, are you?_

_Diana, I—_

_I'm asking sincerely, by the way. You don't worry me very often. But I know you. You wouldn't do something if it wasn't right, so I want you to seriously consider whether or not you're doing this out of your sense of good, or your sense of self._

Christine glanced down at the floor. _I wouldn't be a very good hero if I was doing this out of petty rivalry, would I?_

 _I'm not saying that you need to be a hero,_ Diana said. She paused for a moment to make eye contact with Christine. _But it wouldn't be very characteristic of you to completely disregard what you think is right. Of the three other people you're dragging into this, I'm the one that has the greatest chances of survival if things go sour. But May and Akira are a bit squishier._

_We'll be careful. I promise on my honor._

Diana raised an eyebrow. _'On your honor?' So we are pulling the knight in shining routine, aren't we?_

_Rear Admiral Kaname told me that we needed heroes who would both inspire and protect. I will aspire to be one._

_It's still kind of weird thinking about Yoshio like that,_ Diana said. _Rear Admiral Kaname?_

 _Really? I think it suits him quite well,_ Christine said. _Power is attractive._

Diana raised her eyebrow further. _Oh ho._

_Not like that._

_No, really, I'm surprised. I was going by the 'lesbian by default' rule, so—_

Christine blushed. _I said it wasn't like that!_

_All right, all right._

As the magical girls climbed into the Reaper, Diana asked, "What made you think that Akira knew special tricks, anyways?"

Akira coughed as she overheard the question. "In training, I screwed around a bit with dumb AI schematics, and that's pretty much how Reaper drones autopilot. I'm pretty sure May knows how to actually pilot this thing better than I do, but once we get out, I can optimize a few things."

May begun punching coordinates into the drone's control panel. "Now that D'Arco has a sizable head start on us, we can trail behind at the same speed, a-assuming, of course, that we're going in the right direction."

"Right," Christine said, regaining her composure. "Hit it."

The drone flew on with its inhabitants remaining mostly silent. May attended to the drone itself, while Christine absent-mindedly toyed with her necklace.

 _Hey,_ Diana said, addressing Akira. _I haven't seen you in costume yet. Will you be joining us?_

Akira glanced at Christine. _Well, thanks to her, I guess I don't have much of a choice._

_You'd rather not?_

There was a brief silence, which Diana found somewhat uncharacteristic of Akira. _I wasn't being modest when I said I wasn't a warrior._

 _I'm sure you can fight,_ Diana said.

_But that method of problem-solving has never really appealed to me._

When she smiled, Diana tried her hardest to seem as if she wasn't teasing Akira. _We're magical girls, aren't we? Fighting is what we do._

Akira shrugged. _We've already given away our souls. I can't imagine we owe the Incubators much else. If we fight, it ought to be for our own survival._

 _I suppose,_ Diana said.

 _This is why you shouldn't feel alone when you're afraid,_ Akira said. None of the bubbly cheer was in her voice now. Instead, she spoke with a sense of gravity that Diana knew she had, but had never experienced firsthand. _I'm afraid of falling to despair as well. It's terrifying. But we make it through together._

Diana nodded. _You know I'm the Servant, right? No matter what happens, I can look after you guys. And either way, I_ do _want to see you in costume. It's fun to guess what they'll look like before actually seeing them._

 _Really?_ Akira said, grinning. _So what do you think I look like?_

 _I wonder,_ Diana said. She began to hum absentmindedly. _Are there frills involved?_

Akira stifled a giggle. _Seriously? Frills?_

_Hey, you seem like a classic sort of girl. Are frills not your thing?_

_No, they're cute,_ Akira said. _Well, anyways, frills may or may not be involved in my costume. There isn't any surprise if I just spill right away, is there?_

_Tease._

Akira stuck her tongue out and ignored the strange look that Christine gave her.

"If D'Arco is in the area," Christine said, checking the drone's location, "she'll probably see a Reaper coming. We should get out."

"W-well," May said, "it's not like she won't see us coming anyways."

Christine frowned. "Does her vision work like that?"

"She sees what _will_ happen. If we keep going in this drone, it's likely that she'll see a future where she catches us easily. If we bail, it's likely that she'll see a future where she has more difficulty."

Diana scratched her head. "But either way, she'll have an advantage, won't she? Because the future reflects a past where D'Arco already knew what the future was. The closed loop of knowledge is always in her favor."

May shrunk a bit into her seat. "…Yes."

"What did you say about not getting caught?" Diana said, tilting her head.

The faint green tint of regret appeared on May's face.

"Look, it's more understandable than addition if you want to back out," Diana said. "You're the only one of us with Inquisitional ties. Just looking at this from a pragmatic standpoint, it really does not seem like it's the best idea for you to be seen with us."

May let out a shaky breath. "No. I'm going with you."

"Okay," Diana said. She shrugged as a noncommittal gesture. "It's your call."

"Thank you."

"Hey, it's not like I'm going to stop you."

Christine stood. "Then it's time to go."

Flashes of blue, red, and white filled the cramped interior of the drone. Diana turned expectantly towards Akira, who crossed her arms and giggled.

Akira's costume was themed bright orange, a color which yelled about as loudly as its owner's personality. There _were_ frills after all, even if they only appeared on the cuffs. A simple skirt covered Akira's legs, and two oversized coattails from her shirt flapped in the wind.

Diana's attention was immediately drawn to Akira's weapon: a giant staff, topped with a triangular orange cap. Smaller pieces magically orbited the tip. The staff hummed as Akira hefted it onto her shoulder.

 _Superior firepower?_ Diana asked.

_You bet._

The magical girls jumped out of the drone, landing silently on the rooftop of a dilapidated building below. From her high vantage point, Diana could easily discern the shape of one of Feraxis' major urban centers: abandoned buildings, rubble, and makeshift shelters. When the Fleet of Mercy would come, Lord Admiral Leopold would use the vast expanse of nothingness to set up nanomachine repair centers and medical facilities. There was absolutely nothing Feraxis offered anyone besides space.

Well, Diana reflected, it was a home for the Lyudian natives that nobody, certainly not the Inquisition, cared about.

"Okay," Diana said. "Here we are. Has anybody put significant thought into how we might find Maria D'Arco? Or was the plan just to have us be dropped off and then stumble around blindly for a while?"

A holographic keypad opened on Akira's palm. After doing something that Diana, having no idea how Reaper drones worked, could only assume was magic, the drone's stealth activated and the black silhouette faded away with a shimmer. "For starters, we can cover our traces."

"If we spread out, and if D'Arco is in the area, we'll find her," Christine said. "We can worry about that when it happens."

Diana nodded enthusiastically. "This sounds like an excellent plan."

"If you have any other ideas—"

Simultaneously, their four soul gems lit with urgent light. An invisible hook tugged at Diana's mind, pointing her in one specific direction.

It took a while for them to realize that a miasma had formed in the vicinity. Even heretic planets had the most basic containment procedures: all human beings alive knew how to pray to the Goddess, and faith was the first line of defense. To the magical girls living in the age of the Hierocracy, conceiving that a miasma could spontaneously appear was very hard.

Diana coughed. "Well, checking that out seems like a good start."

While the other three magical girls had to resort to leaping across rooftops, Diana could appreciate the extra mobility her wings gave her. As she drew closer to the source of the miasma, Diana felt the familiar sensation of sweat pooling in her palms. She materialized her recurve bow and tried to take comfort from its presence in her hands.

_This is Lieutenant McDonnell of the Holy Armada. My squad has detected the spontaneous formation of miasma in the area. If there are any civilians caught inside, please respond._

Diana thought that was a very roundabout way of letting D'Arco know that they knew she was there and that they were coming for her. But, she supposed, the relationship that Christine and D'Arco shared was nothing if not stiflingly passive-aggressive.

 _You know, what if there are_ actually _civilians?_ Diana asked.

_Then they should hope that D'Arco doesn't find them. They're probably all heretics._

_Sure,_ Diana said. With a beat of her wings, she rose higher into the sky to get a better vantage point. She saw, with eyes that only magical girls had, the boundary dividing reality and miasma. Terrestrial miasma was a thankfully well-documented occurrence. The small, localized, spawning grounds had their patterns studied and researched a dozen times over.

In the midst of the miasma, two points of light, one bright green, the other navy blue, danced and weaved their way through the demons. _I see them,_ Diana said. _Your call whether or not we go in, Christine._

 _I-I count thirty-four demons,_ May said. _Knowing General D'Arco and Lieutenant Choi, they'll be fine without our assistance._

 _We've already announced our presence,_ Christine said. _And we didn't come here to assist them. The miasma's changed our plans. Sorry, May, but we can't be covert now._

There was a short pause. _All right. I'll go with you, then._

 _Hey, at least now you have some plausible deniability,_ Diana said. _Weird fucking miasma that shouldn't be popping up is popping up. We're just checking it out, right?_

_R-right._

The demons scattered in the face of reinforcements, especially considering that the Goddess' Servant had entered the battle. In a few moments, the four newcomers landed on the street where Maria and Julia were fighting.

 _Well,_ Diana said, speaking to Akira and May, _it seems we've dropped the pretense of stealth._

Maria strode straight up to Christine. The contrast between their costumes was immediately apparent to Diana. Christine was armored in red and gold from head to toe, with barely an inch of skin showing anywhere. D'Arco's torso was covered only by cloth wrappings, and the coat that trailed from her shoulders was colored blue.

"Hello, Lieutenant McDonnell."

"D'Arco, what are you up to?"

Maria tilted her head and smiled. "Matters of confidentiality. Although, with you here, I doubt they will remain confidential much longer."

"What _is_ this place? Why has miasma spontaneously erupted in this area? If there were civilians here—"

"I would have known," Maria said. "As for your first question, this is the previous site of one of Feraxis's few Hierocratic cathedrals. Local Lyudian loyalists faithfully maintained services and miasma containment procedures until the rebels gained access to the facility half a year ago. This was one of the only Hierocratic cathedrals under rebel control in existence."

"And? Containment must still have been maintained."

Maria gestured at the grief cubes that now surrounded them. "Clearly not. Therein lies the crux of the mystery, doesn't it?"

Christine's armor clinked as she tightened a fist and stepped forwards. Julia, dressed in a very formal-looking suit, rose to challenge her, but a raised hand from D'Arco kept her at bay.

When Christine spoke, despite the anger in her words, her voice remained flat and level. "You're trying to keep something in the shadows that certainly does not belong there. I am not an idiot. I know you're hiding something from me. Confess."

Maria sighed and muttered something.

Christine narrowed her eyes in bewilderment. "What?"

"Really, Lieutenant McDonnell, is there any need to be so belligerent?"

Christine's voice grew a note shrill. "Are you trying to play games with me? _What did you say?_ "

"I said, 'It's fortunate that this conversation will end shortly, when you duck to avoid the concealed magical girl aiming to decapitate you.''"

Christine scrambled to the ground a half second before a bolt of magical light screamed above her, making the air ripple with its energy. Akira was the first to react, raising her staff and firing a much larger beam at the source of the light.

 _By the way,_ Maria said, resorting to telepathy, t _here are others._

The sniper and Akira began to engage in a duel, exchanging magical blasts that illuminated the dark patches of rubble with muted colors. Diana could sense instinctively that the other girl was losing.

Three other girls used teleportation magic to ambush Maria. It was a losing proposition. Besides Akira, who was fighting the hidden girl, there were five magical girls against the rebels' three. Diana realized that it was an attack out of desperation. The girls were very determined to prevent Maria from reaching something, and they were ready to die trying. That was no surprise—in the Hierocracy, "ready to die trying" was practically the norm. Religious fervor and nationalism, whichever side it was on, made heroics easy.

Julia and Maria leapt to action the most eagerly. Playing cards erupted from Julia's sleeves as she made for one of the magical girls. Where one of the cards cut through the other girl's skin, corruption spread forth throughout the girl's body. Diana did her best to tune out the girl's final scream.

Christine looked initially reluctant to fight until one rebel magical girl teleported straight up to her and swung a hammer at her face. With a clang of steel on steel, Christine parried the blow and then struck out, driving the other girl back. Diana let an arrow fly and ripped the girl's arm off. They were heretics, so it was okay, right? But they were also fellow magical girls, so some restraint was warranted, right? Diana wasn't aiming for the soul gem. Armada training had prepared her to fight for the Goddess, but only against demons.

She kept watching as May caught the girl with one of her chains and shattered her soul gem with her scythe.

Akira snarled as one final blast of magic sent the sniper tumbling from her nest. Her orange costume was charred and cut in places, and her soul gem swirled with a hint of darkness. Diana rushed forwards to give Akira grief cube.

_You all right?_

_Yeah,_ Akira said, breathing heavily. _Thanks._

Diana grimaced. _Well, this is kinda awful. To be honest, I'm more disturbed than frightened, and I'm not sure which is worse._

_This is generally what the Inquisition seems like to Armada and Hearth girls. I know May is different, but she still does dirty work._

The last rebel seemed to be the most competent. She danced around Maria, striking with a flurry of blows. Maria, wielding two ornate handguns, struck back in a carefully choreographed storm. She took perfect aim, boxing in the other magical girl using her precognition, advancing slowly and surely towards her prey.

Finally, one of Maria's magical bullets caught her enemy in the chest, and she collapsed. Maria walked forwards, her handguns aimed at the girl's head.

The rebel looked up with effort. When conflict erupted on rebel planets, even girls that had previous ties to the Hierocracy could turn heretic. In another world, the girl before Diana, freckles splattered across her ashen face, could have been a comrade. She would have been a fellow hero, fighting the war to save humanity. Instead, her she was, fighting a war to resist the inevitable.

"Damn you all," the girl said. Her voice was an animalistic snarl. Despair pooled dark and deep in her soul gem. "I'll never talk."

"I know," Maria said, before shooting the girl through the soul gem.

When she turned around to face Diana and the others, there was still a tiny speck of blood on her cheek. "I believe that what I came here to seek is farther ahead. At this point, it would be pointless of me to tell you to turn around, so I suppose I have no choice but to allow you four to accompany me."

Christine was the first to hesitantly follow Maria. _Are we seriously doing this?_ Diana asked. _Fuck, she—we—just murdered four girls._

The Hierocracy was humanity's united front for hope and justice. For the first time in human history, all the fragmented nations of the world had banded together to stand for the good of the Goddess above, and by her holy mandate did the Prophets maintain total rule over humanity in graceful benevolence.

So went the story Diana had been told in childhood. Having it be dispelled so violently was rather disconcerting.

 _Them or us,_ Christine said. Diana raised an eyebrow in surprise. Christine was the last person Diana had expected to justify the Inquisition's business.

"Are you coming?" Maria—was she Maria or D'Arco, the person or the symbol of Inquisitional power?—asked.

 _Fuck it,_ Akira said. _Let's go._ Behind them, May was silent. Even when Diana turned around to gauge her reaction, her expression was unreadable.

They walked through the city, half of it devastated by civil warfare, the other half now infested with miasma and demons. Graffiti of Hashal was haphazardly splayed across the building walls, and the miasma seemed to contort and swirl around the images. Domersek took on a much more sinister light when Diana was surrounded by it in hostile territory.

Demons darted in and out of abandoned buildings, registering as brief flashes of alarm in the corners of Diana's vision. Two cracks of gunshot drew Diana's attention to Maria, who continued to walk steadfastly forwards. Smoke rose from the barrels of her guns.

Abruptly, she stopped and smiled. "Ah," she said. "Good planning, Sergeant Tanaka."

Akira started. "What?"

The ground shook momentarily as a transport vessel took off a couple blocks away. Given the slipshod paint job and the lack of any symbols identifying it as a Hierocratic vessel, Diana made a rather safe guess that someone was trying to escape the planet, and that whoever it was, they held no sympathies to the Hierocracy.

A moment passed, recognition flitted across Akira's face, and then she brought up her keypad. With a high-pitched whine, the invisible Reaper drone that had been following above the magical girls uncloaked and sprung to life. Its black frame screamed through the air as the drone leapt towards its target, turning on a dime to rest above the transport. With a distant whir, the drone's plasma cannon deployed.

"Well?" Maria asked.

"I—"

 _The other magical girl was trying to kill us,_ Akira said. _Christine was right. Us or them. But this—_

"It's strange that you hesitate," Maria said. "But it doesn't matter. What will happen will happen regardless of what we may try to prevent. As per my powers as general, I am taking control of that drone."

Plasma burned its way through the transport vessel in a flash of light and sound. It fell to the ground silently, with perverse grace, before the screams of shearing metal heralded its crash.

Diana's soul gem only glowed brighter as the magical girls drew closer to the remnants of the transport. Trepidation chilled her heart. Telepathic communications were as silent as the dead city they walked in.

The transport vessel's wreck belched smoke. Sparks danced along the burnt chassis. Christine drew her sword to sift through the rubble, moving away piece after piece. After a few tedious minutes, they uncovered the cabin of the transport.

Of course, Diana reflected later, it had to be some sort of shocking surprise. How could it possibly _not_ be?

The demon's long, thin form was broken and twisted. This one seemed smaller than the others, like the sword-wielding ones Christine had fought, but without the armor. A broken chain dangled from its neck. A man and a woman, obviously Lyudian, lay dying next to it.

When Maria raised her pistol to kill the man, Julia placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't we need information?"

"The containment seal on this demon, and, by obvious extension, the cathedral, was deliberately broken. Of course, the procedure is extremely illegal to attempt, but breaking a seal is theoretically possible. However, there is a problem with the explanation thus far," Maria said. "Either way, I probably don't need these Lyudian's information, and if I do, I only need one of them."

Blood splattered across the vessel, and Diana had to look away. "The problem is that the rebels have no sufficiently compelling motivation. It is all well to suspect them of aiding demons, but for them to actually do so? The demons are mindless beasts. Why let loose a wild dog and have only the faint hope that it will chase your enemy?"

The ground crunched beneath armored feet as Christine stepped forwards. "How long have you known this?"

"I've had suspicions ever since this war began."

"And you told nobody?"

"I find my handling of the situation satisfactory."

Julia eyed Christine and fiddled with one of her playing cards. Diana watched on as realization began to creep into her brain. Maria's words were implying something very unpleasant. In the Goddess's Seat, her thoughts about heretics and demons had seemed to be only idle musings, the product of a woman far detached from the actual war who entertained herself with thought experiments. It was just too absurd to consider.

"We thought," Maria said to plod forwards with her explanation, "that our problems with the demon threat were limited to outer space. But now, I find my initial paranoia to be frighteningly justified. The demon threat is very, very real on the ground as well, because the rebels and the demons have been cooperating."

The usual faint smile on Maria's face was conspicuously absent. "Sapient demons are no longer hypotheticals," she said. "This one was spawned inside a containment facility. We can only assume that planet-side breaches in security are widespread throughout this sector, and that they were coordinated between demons and local heretic movements."

May chewed her lip. "S-she's right. I can feel the demon's mind. I can't do that with non-sapient beings."

The surviving heretic whimpered and cowered as May turned to her. "Tell me everything," she said, and the heretic's eyes glazed over as she began to ramble incoherently. From the jumbled mess of words, Diana could hear:

 _Were trying to escape the Inquisition with our allies—too low down the chain of command to know—they contacted us first—the demons would expel the Hierocracy from the colonies if we sheltered them—only a few could speak to us, but they held the rest back—Hashal will prevail—we've been planning this for months before the demons revealed themselves to the rest of the Hierocracy—in the beginning we gave them ships to escape containment so that they could begin spawning miasma and breeding mutations in deep space—Hashal_ will prevail—

Meanwhile, the demon, its body broken, miasma leaking from the gashes in its side, began to gurgle as its life faded. It had a life, didn't it? It could think. Diana wondered which scenario was scarier: situation one, where demons were mindless monsters whose only impulse was the destruction of humanity, or situation two, where demons had free will, and with the freedom of choice, turned to humanity and decided to devour it. Or was there really any choice at all?

As the miasma seeping from the demon's body mingled with the air, Diana heard faint whispers emanating from the malignance. The words were filled with hate and the urge to kill, and they spoke to her personally.

_You will have the privilege to die first. Such a fate is only fitting one so terrified of us. We desire more substantial meat than you. You will die first, and you will die alone._

It appeared that the others could hear the voice as well, because Christine raised her sword and sliced the demon in two.

They stood there for some time, staring as the demon's body melted away and May's spell wore off the woman, leaving her a shivering wreck. The blood from the man poured into the woman's shirt, but she did not seem to notice. Miasma covered everything like the stench of the dead sticking to a mass grave.

It was Christine who finally broke the silence and said, "We need to report this to the Prophet-Queen. Let's go."

The Reaper descended from the sky. Silently, the magical girls entered the craft, leaving to fight a very different war than the one they had been prepared for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who would have fucking thought, i decide to remind everyone that this is a pmmm fanfiction and include original series characters.


	6. Intermission Part 1: On Our Backs

_So the first Prophet, without company or solace, drowned in darkness and despair. There, in that hell, did the first Prophet forge himself anew._

_Wrath burned in his veins and fanned flames of fury against the enemy._

_Mercy tempered his heart and revealed to him the path of salvation for the wretched._

_Pride straightened his back against hardship and drove his legs forwards._

_Courage strengthened him against the terrors of shadow that surrounded him and threatened to consume him._

_Then Hope delivered the first Prophet out of darkness,_

_and by the will of the Goddess did he rise up._

-x-

Kaname Tatsuya nibbled at the pickled vegetables in his boxed lunch. As always, he did so alone. His perch at the rooftop of Mitakihara Middle School would remain undisturbed today, as it had been for the last three years. Tatsuya wondered why. The rooftop was the stereotypical hideout for lone wolves, wasn't it? Well, Mitakihara's students were sociable people. They had friends to laugh with and places to be, so what was the point of coming to the rooftop?

_Ah, hello, Kyubey._

Over the years, Tatsuya had decided that the strange creature he saw slinking from rooftop to streetlamp throughout Mitakihara was a strange cross of ferret, cat, and snake—the first because of its body, the second because of its ears, and the third because of its tongue. He had learned to be wary of the things.

 _Good morning, Tatsuya-kun!_ The Incubator leapt onto Tatsuya's lap and curled into a ball. Its tail flicked towards Tatsuya's lunch as it tried to pass one of his tangerine slices into its mouth, but Tatsuya batted it away.

Tatsuya hesitated a Moment before beginning to slowly pet the Incubator. _What brings you here today?_

 _Just checking on my favorite human anomaly. I haven't seen you in some time, Tatsuya- kun,_ Kyubey said. _Do you have anything interesting for me today?_

_Mostly the usual. Visions that nobody else can see. Voices that nobody else can hear. This is what you might define insanity as, isn't it, Kyubey?_

The Incubator crawled onto Tatsuya's shoulders. Its fur on his neck felt like a warm scarf. _It is not hard to imagine that you suffer from mental illness or something very close to it. However, that is hardly the most interesting explanation._

 _Then what_ is _the most interesting explanation?_

 _Well, who knows?_ Kyubey said.

Tatsuya's sister did, didn't she?

 _Maybe nobody,_ Tatsuya said. _Don't you have magical girls to watch over?_

 _Of course! Two more of my iterations are currently on recruiting rounds. The great success of the_ mahou shoujo _project has greatly increased the number of girls we are willing to induct into service. I suppose I have Akemi Homura to thank for that, in part._

The color purple flashed across the forefront of Tatsuya's mind, then black, then red.

 _Still, having to handle so many girls is putting a strain on my processing capabilities,_ Kyubey said. _Dealing with you humans is so stressful, even with Tomoe Mami and Sakura Kyouko acting as serviceable intermediaries. The Incubators are even considering the costs and benefits of deploying another recruiter to Earth._

 _Sakura-san and Tomoe-san,_ Tatsuya wondered. _How are they doing?_

The Incubator's movements paused Momentarily. _You have never met either of them._

Well, of course. Tatsuya could do the math. Sakura-san and Tomoe-san were well into their twenties by now, weren't they? He was only in middle school. They had business to attend to. More demons and more magical girls meant rationing grief cubes, dividing territory, and, most importantly, dealing with Akemi-san.

_How do you know of them?_

The false cheerfulness had drained from Kyubey's voice. It stared at Tatsuya intently. Its two ruby eyes glittered in the sunlight.

 _Bedtime stories,_ Tatsuya said. The stories that his mother had told him had slowly faded from his mind as he grew into adolescence. But when he had asked Madoka to _tell me a bedtime story,_ that transformed into _tell me a story_ as he grew, and then to simply _tell me about them._

As he had aged, the stories grew more somber and complex. The characters transformed from heroes into people, struggling to find a path to hope in a very hopeless world. Madoka still hadn't told him how the story ended yet, but she had told him the epilogue.

_Would you like to elaborate on the bedtime stories?_

Tatsuya shrugged. _Fantasy is fantasy, and reality is reality. Whichever one somebody chooses to live in is private business. I don't know any more about what's going on than you do, Incubator._

 _Yet you have unusually detailed knowledge about the_ mahou shoujo _system and maintain ties with Akemi Homura, the ultimate anomaly,_ Kyubey said.

_Kyubey, you know what a fairy tale is?_

The Incubator licked its paw. _I know a little._

Tatsuya finished off the last pieces of his lunch. He yawned deeply as he stretched his body out on the roof. An outstretched hand shielded his eyes from the bright sun.

 _It really is quite beautiful today, isn't it?_ Tatsuya said.

_I might agree with you if I had a better conception of favorable and unfavorable weather. It is all atmospheric variation to me._

Tatsuya giggled. "How sad," he muttered aloud.

 _You see, Kyubey,_ he said, _you can try to come to me to learn about your world, the one where you, Akemi-san, Tomoe-san, and Sakura-san live, but I'm afraid I can't help you very much. To me, it's like a fairy tale has sprung up in the real world, and I'm the only normal person who can watch. But of course, I can't take part. If you want to learn the secrets of your world, it's useless to ask someone who isn't a part of it._

_Then what world do you belong to?_

Below them, in the school, the lunch bell rang. A thousand students roughhoused and teased and laughed as they made their way to class. The noise was dampened by distance when it reached Tatsuya's ears. From so high up, the people walking on the streets and in the school's courtyard looked like tiny dots. From down there, he probably looked the same way.

 _My own,_ Tatsuya said. _The space between fantasy and reality. A place where nobody can enter._

-x-

"Yo, we gotta have balance. Balance will make everything perfect, ya see?"

"I really don't see."

"Look. If three girls and two guys are going to a karaoke bar, it'll be lame, because neither of us can pull off two girls at once. So we either remove a girl, which would be rude and stupid, or we get another guy to go."

"Fine, then. Haruhiko's got his club, Kenji doesn't like hanging out with girls—"

"What about the transfer student? Uh, the American?"

"Dave said he had something to do with his brother."

"Then what about Kaname-kun?"

Tatsuya hesitated slightly as he put away his books.

"If we bring Kaname-kun, then your precious balance is gone, because we bring him _and_ his imaginary friend."

"Dude, don't be a dick."

"You go ask him then."

Tatsuya hurriedly packed the remainder of his books and left the classroom before either of them could approach.

Mitakihara Middle School had always seemed too much like a glass cage for Tatsuya to be entirely comfortable inside it. Emerging from it into the city proper was liberating. The school echoed with memories that Tatsuya could hear but not understand and housed phantoms that he could see but not speak with. Tatsuya imagined that they were trapped there, in that glass cage, until somebody could free them.

When walking home, he found himself absentmindedly checking the hands of passing girls his age, looking for a ring or a fingernail mark. He found nothing and received a few strange looks for his trouble.

The clouds grew thick above him. Tatsuya glanced upwards with concern. The weather had been perfect only a couple hours ago.

Rain began to pour from the skies, soaking Tatsuya's uniform. With an unhappy frown, Tatsuya searched for a place to take shelter in. He spotted a convenience store across the street, the lights from the storefront twinkling to invite him in.

Water pooled around Tatsuya's feet as he stepped inside. After wiping moisture from his hair, he began to look for an umbrella to buy.

A boy and a girl in the other aisle were gossiping. Neither of them seemed to notice Tatsuya, who sneaked a quick glance at their clothing. They weren't from his school.

"It's just dangerous to be out too late nowadays," the boy said.

The girl shivered. "You've seen the news?"

"Yeah, of course. Murders, suicide. Did you know they say that the violent felony rate's gone up, like, 30% in the last eleven years? You wonder what this city's coming to."

"Not just this city," the girl said. "In my statistics class, we had to analyze studies from twelve different major countries. China, Japan, America, Germany—all of them have seen increased crime rates. What do you think is the cause?"

"Well, of course they blame our generation," the boy said. "Seriously. As if people like us have anything to do with it."

Tatsuya fished an umbrella out of a bucket and presented it to the store clerk. Images of people with strange marks on their necks and a glazed look across their eyes danced across his mind. To be born from a curse—would a witch remember whatever the object of that curse was? Or would those curses just be howled aimlessly at the world, without direction, only filled with hate?

The headlines of a nearby newspaper drew Tatsuya's attention. A mass suicide had occurred in Shinjuku. Madoka had told him that there were no more witches, but now Kyubey used the word "demon."

So what was the difference? _A witch is born from the curses of fallen magical girls._ Madoka had never explained what that meant, but Tatsuya, from the way the stories went, had a fairly good idea. When the story's plot moved in a circle, it was hard to miss patterns.

"That'll be five hundred yen."

The store clerk's voice penetrated Tatsuya's thoughts. "I'm sorry?"

"5-0-0. Yen. Five hundred yen."

"Oh," Tatsuya said, fishing through his pocket. He came up with four hundred and fifty-five.

"I'm sorry, but it seems that I'm out of change."

The clerk gave him a flat stare as condolence. At the hostile gesture, Tatsuya shrugged and smiled at the clerk before returning the umbrella and walking out of the store.

Rain soaked him all over again, which was rather inconvenient, but Tatsuya soldiered on regardless. It was nothing that a hot shower couldn't fix, and Tatsuya considered himself to have a stronger immune system than most people. Either way, it wasn't like he was going to get pneumonia and die.

"Hey, kid, you planning on getting pneumonia and dying?"

Tatsuya looked up and felt his eyes widen in Momentary surprise. To normal people, the first thing that would stand out about the lady before him would be her bright red hair, contrasting with her muted sweater and jeans. Her smile advertised not the cleanliness of her teeth, but more the presence and sharpness of her canines.

To Kaname Tatsuya, the most obvious point about the woman was that she was Sakura Kyouko.

Kyouko held an umbrella over Tatsuya. "Sheesh, kids these days know nothing about self-preservation."

"Thank you." Tatsuya didn't call Kyouko by name. He was hardly about to let her know that he was aware of things that somebody like him had no right knowing.

Slowly, he let his gaze wander down to Kyouko's hand. There, as expected, was the mark on her fingernail, next to her soul gem's ring.

"Here, where are you headed? I've got a car. I can give you a ride. Wait, no, that's weird and creepy. Your mother told you not to get into cars with strangers, didn't she?"

"Some spare change to buy myself an umbrella would be nice."

"Yeah, sure," Kyouko said. She reached into her pocket and fished out a handful of coins. "Take it, and get inside quick. A storm's coming."

Tatsuya glanced up at the sky. "How do you know? It seems to be only raining."

"Just call it a feeling, all right?" Kyouko said. When Tatsuya looked back at the city, the fringes of the streets filled him with unease. Flickering streetlamps illuminated the soaked city with pale yellow light. In broad daylight, the city shone like it was gilded, soaring towers decorated with ornamental patterns reaching upwards to a clear sky. The rain washed its beauty away.

Kyouko tapped her foot impatiently. "Hey, hurry up, all right? I don't have all day."

"Ah, I'm sorry," Tatsuya said, smiling. "You seem like a busy woman. I won't keep any more of your time."

Tatsuya ducked into the store and placated the clerk with the extra coinage. After stepping back outside, now with an umbrella in hand, he gave Kyouko a short bow. "Thank you again for your kindness."

Kyouko waved a hand. "It'd be bad form if I demanded thanks from you," she said.

"All right," Tatsuya said. As his eyes scanned the street, motion flashed in the corners of his vision. There, in the distance, what was that? A tall figure, flickering in and out of existence, slowly straightening its back—mist permeating through the air one second, and then vanishing the next—the smell of death assaulting his nose before disappearing.

Tatsuya felt ill, but he forced the sensation down.

"Hey, kid, you all right?"

"I'm fine," Tatsuya said, turning to leave. "Do your best."

He walked away too fast to see Kyouko raise an eyebrow in surprise or hear her mutter, "What was that?"

Tatsuya could only imagine the flash of red light.

-x-

When he got home, his father began fussing over him. "You can't stay out so long when it's raining, you know," he said, wiping Tatsuya's hair dry with a towel.

"Yes, Dad."

Kaname Tomohisa sighed. "Tatsuya, you didn't space out in the middle of the street again, did you?"

"If I did, I'd probably be much wetter," Tatsuya said.

Tomohisa laughed. "Fine. Just take care of yourself, okay?"

"I do, Dad. Do you know when Mom's coming home?"

Outside, the wind made the windows rattle. "She said that she would come home early because of the weather," Tomohisa said. "The storm's gotten worse. Scientists everywhere are calling this some sort of freak supercell, so they're considering ordering evacuation."

Tatsuya shifted in unease.

"Something wrong?"

"It's nothing, Dad. I'm just not feeling too good."

Tomohisa frowned. "You aren't sick, are you? It'd be awful if you got pneumonia."

"Dad, I'm not going to get pneumonia. I was only out in the rain for a little bit. I'll go take a warm shower if you want, okay?"

"Yeah, go do that," Tomohisa said. His brow was furrowed in concern. Tatsuya's eyes were drawn to the errant strands of gray hair on his father's head.

Hot water poured down onto Tatsuya's shoulders, massaging his muscles but doing nothing to calm his mind. Tatsuya closed his eyes to relax and tried to focus on the sensation of the water. Bedtime stories weren't supposed to be detrimental to his mental health, right? He couldn't ignore an entire second world, but he could make sure that his world and it remained separate.

There was no reason for him to be upset. Meaningless parallels between the fairy tale and reality were only that. Why would the status quo shift so abruptly, anyway?

When he opened his eyes, the water was flowing down the shower wall in a pattern. They formed characters that Tatsuya knew were not from a language any human tongue spoke.

"WALPURGISNACHT," he read.

Tatsuya wiped away the runes with his hand and turned the shower's water off.

When he emerged from the bathroom and changed into his pajamas, his mother had already arrived home. "Welcome home," Tatsuya said. Junko was notably sober today.

"Tomorrow, we're going to have to evacuate," she said. "Get your stuff ready."

"The storm has gotten that bad?"

Junko nodded. "It's strange," she said. "It feels like we've gone through this all before, doesn't it?"

WALPURGISNACHT, spelled the runes dancing across Tatsuya's mind, but he paid them no heed. "Really? Freak storms seem to be a novel experience to me," Tatsuya said.

"Well, of course," Junko said. "I don't know what I'm thinking."

Hours later, after Tatsuya had finished his homework, he rolled onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. The image of Kyouko, umbrella dripping with rain, turning around to face the invisible enemy stuck in his mind. Why did magical girls fight? The easiest answer was that they had to eat, somehow.

Then how was it his business? The magical girls had the demons under control. Even if Tatsuya knew very well that their position was far from enviable, they at least did their job well. Tatsuya respected them for that, but he honestly wanted no part in their world.

If he wanted to, he could have told Kyouko his name. He could have told her about how he knew Akemi Homura. He could have even told her about Tomoe Mami and other people he shouldn't have had any reason to know about. Then, what choice would he have but to be dragged into the world of magic?

People were nice enough to deserve his smile, but he was disconnected from them. The world of magic was fundamentally one of service. Tatsuya knew that well enough from the stories. What did he owe them?

_You are in danger._

Tatsuya turned his head to look at the Incubator sitting next to him on the bed.

_Good evening, Kyubey._

_Aren't you scared for your life?_ Kyubey asked. _I'm telling you that you're in danger._

_Maybe I haven't fully internalized what you're saying yet. You may as well keep talking._

The Incubator licked its paw. _It's strange. In this chapter of human history, I seem to be talking about anomalies so much that the normal state of affairs seems to be the real anomaly. Perhaps it is the result of fate._

 _Fate?_ Tatsuya asked.

_Or causality. That seems like a much more precise word, doesn't it?_

_What are you implying?_

_Nothing, really,_ Kyubey said. _It has been a long time since I last talked to somebody while not trying to advance a larger agenda. Now, I'm talking to you to advance a personal agenda. But you knew that I always had an ulterior motive. You're a smart boy. No hard feelings, right?_

Tatsuya frowned. _What is this personal agenda?_

 _I told you. Your survival,_ Kyubey said, _is of inexplicable interest to me. Mostly because you are such an anomaly. Of course my views are not shared by the Incubator hivemind. The empirically unverifiable ought to be of no interest to us. But either way, you_ are _my favorite anomaly._

_By virtue of?_

_Your mystery._

Tatsuya sat up in his bed. The Incubator was making it hard for him to sleep. _What is the danger?_

_Ever since Akemi Homura contracted—which, of course, I have no memory of ever doing, but so go the anomalies—the probability of survival for magical girls in this city has risen dramatically. So has the ease with which the demons may be destroyed before a new batch spawns, thereby allowing for an increase in the total magical girl population. Indeed, similar trends seem to be occurring worldwide._

Kyubey reached one of his paws forwards. _May I?_

_Go ahead._

The Incubator touched Tatsuya's forehead, and information began pouring into his mind. _As you can see, we have been keeping meticulous track of demon population densities. It seems that, in response to growing magical girl populations, demons have increased their numbers. However, this is nothing serious. Magical girls can handle it by simply taking more care during their missions. The problem lies in yet another anomaly._

_What is that?_

_Miasmal mutation,_ Kyubey said. _The same way bacteria resistant to antibiotics survive to reproduce, miasma that can produce stronger demons or ones that can hide from magical girls will survive longer and spread their influence across larger areas. Even when they are dispersed, the miasma generated by a demon once it has targeted a human being will share the properties of the miasma that demon was born from. Misery, hate, and suffering—you humans certainly have all three in remarkably varied quantities._

_That's just human existence. But there is also hope, happiness, and courage, isn't there, Incubator? You are the one who creates magical girls._

_True. But do you think that love and courage will win in the end?_

_Of course. Now, then, Kyubey, what's your point?_

_A storm is coming,_ Kyubey said. _Mutated miasma has multiplied and spread across the world. It is tenuously linked by human populations. While there is no such thing as a collective unconsciousness, this is the closest it seems humanity will be to ever creating one. Of course, this collective unconsciousness is one of evil. Very soon, the bubble will burst._

_Why haven't the magical girls stopped it?_

_There was very little notice, of course. Does a flash fire telegraph its coming? The only warning are the factors that might contribute to the fire, and we did all we could to answer those. But this storm_ will _come. I told you, didn't I? It is destiny. Or causality. Whichever one you want._

Tatsuya idly stroked the Incubator's fur. _So you want me to run?_

_Why do you react without fear?_

_I still can't really believe what's happening,_ Tatsuya said. _I_ believe _you, as in the content of your words. I know that there is danger. But my intuition is out of sync._

 _The demons are coming,_ Kyubey said, _and one way or another, this city will drown in despair._

 _The magical girls will protect this city. They have done so for years,_ Tatsuya said.

_Perhaps. But if they fail, even if you survive, your family will surely die._

Abruptly, Tatsuya leapt out of his bed and walked to his door. _Where are you going?_ Kyubey asked.

_If my family is in danger, I have to warn them. They will think that I'm insane, and if you're wrong, I can probably look forwards to being institutionalized. That might happen either way, seeing as there have always been whispers about me being crazy. My parents are not oblivious to them. But I still have to warn them._

Tatsuya knew that the Incubator was still staring at him as he left the room.

He found his mother downstairs, a shot glass in one hand and a remote control in the other. On the television, climatologists were expressing their bewilderment over the supercell storm, appearing out of nowhere with only a day's warning.

"Mom?"

Junko turned around. "Tatsuya? Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"I want to talk to you."

Wordlessly, Junko had Tatsuya sit down beside her. "What is it?"

Tatsuya's gaze was fixed at the floor. "If I told you that we were in serious danger, but not because of the storm, would you believe me? Or would you just dismiss it as my imagination?"

Junko hesitated in indecision for a Moment, her body freezing like a still frame before she put her alcohol on the countertop. "Tatsuya, I've never—or at least, I've never _wanted—_ to dismiss you."

"But you know that I took longer than usual to grow out of my imaginary friends, right?"

The look that Junko gave Tatsuya was guarded and searching. "Yes. Tatsuya, are you hiding something from me?"

Tatsuya put a hand up to his mouth and laughed lightly. "What if I told you that I still believed?"

"Honestly, I wouldn't be that surprised. You're a strange kid. But you're my son, and I love you."

Behind his hand, Tatsuya bit his lip. He paused for a Moment before he said, "Thanks, Mom."

"So, why do you think that we're in danger?"

"I don't think I can really explain why."

"Then let's assume that we _are_ in danger. What should we do?"

"Run."

Junko flipped the channels on the television to a different news report. The storm had destroyed the highways leading out of the city, preventing the use of evacuation centers in other cities. There were of course concerns about how Mitakihara's evacuation centers might suffer from overcrowding—

"We don't have any choice but to stay and wait out the storm," Junko said, turning off the television.

Tatsuya didn't say anything.

"Tatsuya? Are you afraid?"

Was what Kyubey said true? The world of magic was filled with suffering and destruction. To have it intersect with his life—his family, the only people who bothered putting up with his delusions—

He nodded silently.

Junko smiled at Tatsuya before wrapping him in a hug. "Hey, it's okay. You don't have to worry about the storm."

_But I'm not worried about the storm._

"Mom? When you're afraid, what do you do?"

Junko brushed a hand through Tatsuya's hair. "Well, at work, there are plenty of times when I'm afraid that I won't be able to work hard enough. That there isn't possibly anything I can do to avoid a bad outcome. If that's the case, then it's pointless, so why try?"

When Tatsuya looked into his mother's eyes, love and foreboding flowed together into a bittersweet mix that filled his veins.

"But you see," Junko said, "if you think like that, you've already given up. Trying my best is what I do. If I never know how hard I can strive, then do I really know who I am? I think you're like that too, Tatsuya. If you give up or half-ass it, you'll never know who you are. When I'm scared, I just think that if I let fear rule my body, I'll give up, which I can't do. Fear is just an emotion, but because it comes from within us, its darkness can corrupt us. So all we can do is face the darkness and rise up against it."

"You make it sound so easy, Mom."

Junko smiled. "I try."

When Tatsuya slept, the word from before danced through his mind, taunting him.

"WALPURGISNACHT," it read.

He saw images of a city ruined by disaster, filled by the stench of the dead. The city's ground was littered with the bodies of its fallen defenders.

Because no matter how hard love and courage tried, if it was just a matter of fact that the forces of evil were stronger, then good would be defeated.

Magical girl after magical girl tried to defeat the witch and were cast into darkness in turn. Every city the witch touched was obliterated. Every world it materialized in was destroyed.

For millennia humanity had survived on stolen miracles. Now, wasn't it time for a curse, a catastrophe, a scourge brought down by the heavens themselves, to make humanity pay back on its credit?

The runes circled around Tatsuya's vision.

WALPURGISNACHT.

His vision blurred and the letters began to twist. In his dream, Tatsuya felt nauseous as he lost his sense of up or down.

Curses and wishes were nothing but two sides of the same coin. If humanity had rejected the Incubators' kind offer to house all their curses in a relatively small number of girls, then those curses would have to be distributed.

Tatsuya saw a white tower, descending down to Earth from the heavens. Its surface bubbled and writhed as if the thing was alive.

What was a witch but a paid debt? What was a demon but a magic looking glass?

The runes faded away, and in their place, Tatsuya read a new word:

GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG.

-x-

The walls of the stadium rattled, prompting Tatsuya to huddle deeper into the fetal position. Mothers scattered throughout the stadium floor simultaneously hushed their babies in a rolling wave of sound. So many people, all packed in one spot, formed an undistinguished mass.

Tatsuya had been told that this evacuation center was number six. There were around a dozen throughout the city, all holding Mitakihara's inhabitants as they weathered the storm.

An awful sense of déjà vu gripped Tatsuya. If this had all happened before, why was he now powerless to stop the chain of events that was so inexorably advancing?

Tatsuya checked the date on his phone. It was the first of May.

Calmly and deliberately, Tatsuya closed his eyes and began to think.

What happened in the stories that Madoka told him? There were countless instances when the heroes lost, but what about those few times when they won, or came close to winning?

It was always because they stuck together and believed in themselves.

Of course the message sounded like it came from a bad anime, but Tatsuya was going to take whatever hints he could get.

He remembered what his sister looked like and who she was. Madoka was kind and gentle, with a warm smile always on her face. She was sorry that she couldn't always be with Tatsuya as he grew up, and she was sorry that she couldn't talk to Mom or Dad. But she was there to protect Tatsuya, wasn't she? Until one day, he was strong enough to protect himself.

Tatsuya's hands were freezing. The heating for the stadium had blown out some time ago, and nobody in the Kaname family had had the foresight to bring gloves. Shivering slightly in the cold, Tatsuya reached into his backpack and pulled out a warm thermos of tea.

If his sister were real, then wouldn't she be able to help him?

Tatsuya took a sip of tea. The beverage warmed him as he swallowed, and the bitter taste danced lightly on his tongue.

When Tatsuya looked down, he had to clamp his hands hard against his thermos to prevent him from dropping it in surprise. Fog flickered in and out of existence at his feet. The rational part of his brain told him that the fog wasn't really there. This was just another mirage that wasn't supposed to exist.

"Mom? Dad?"

His father looked up. "Something wrong, Tatsuya?"

"I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'll be back soon."

Neither of his parents complained when he stood to leave. When he was out of sight of the stadium floor, he immediately walked to a window.

Outside, of course, the storm raged, but if Tatsuya looked hard enough, he thought that he could see dots of colored light darting about inside the storm, like fireflies.

He stared for one Moment too long.

At first, he mistook it as lightning, but the white pillar bursting out of the cloud layer didn't flash or fade away. It was decidedly solid, and Tatsuya remembered the exact image that he had seen from his dream.

"Götterdämmerung," Tatsuya whispered. It was a word that that heralded downfall and despair.

A voice, urgent and shrill, pierced his head. _Get out, get out of that stadium, move!_

From the stadium floor, a wave of surprise and panic washed over the people as they heard the same voice in their head. Then the screams as a swarm of demons, newly materialized onto the plane of reality, burst from the walls and the ceiling and descended towards them.

Dots of light raced after the demons and began cutting them down. All Tatsuya could see was that the magical girls were heavily outnumbered.

 _Spread out; don't stick together!_ a magical girl broadcasted. _Large clumps will be easy pickings!_

Every fiber in Tatsuya's body was screaming for him to run when he realized _my parents are down there._

Tall, white-robed demons loomed over Tatsuya as he sprinted back to the stadium floor. The people, attacked by a clearly supernatural enemy and surrounded by the bright flashes of light signaling magical girl combat, had, quite predictably, panicked.

Tatsuya searched for his parents in vain as people rushed around him. Several blows to his ribs almost brought him to his knees, but he struggled his way to his feet.

Surrounded by danger and chaos, with his life in very real danger of ending, Tatsuya had to think fast.

 _Kyubey!_ he shouted, reaching out with his mind.

The magical girls reacted with confusion. _Who the hell's this—_

 _Was that a_ boy—

 _Yes, Tatsuya?_ Kyubey answered.

_Can you find my parents in this crowd?_

_Certainly. Would you like to talk to them?_

Tatsuya began fighting to make his way through the crowd. _No, that would probably only make them panic more. Lead me to them!_

Something began tugging at Tatsuya's mind, leading him down a set path. Panic was an infectious disease, and Tatsuya had to take care to not become infected. He had to find his parents. He had to explain everything. He had to lead them to safety. If he lost his family, who else would he have left?

When he found them, Tatsuya almost barreled straight over his own father in haste.

"Oh my God, Tatsuya—"

His mother's grip clamped down on his shoulders. Junko didn't waste words. She kicked and pushed her way through the morass of people, carving a path for Tatsuya.

As the fight wore on, the demons began to overwhelm the magical girls. Tatsuya figured that there must have been hundreds of demons, pouring in from holes in the roof and walls, like sharks that had smelled blood. For every demon that a magical girl cut down in a second, two more materialized into reality.

By some miracle, Tatsuya and his family managed to exit the ruined stadium structure, only to find that people and demons had streamed out into the streets far before them. Fires were beginning to spark up, started by the havoc that the demons were causing. Tatsuya flinched as a car burst into flames.

"Get _down,_ " Junko hissed, forcing Tatsuya behind an overturned truck. The three members of the Kaname family huddled together as a squad of demons poured over the buildings lining the street, cutting down anybody they saw. There were no magic girls to stop them, which meant that they were all concentrated inside the stadium, defending the people still inside, or that the stadium had been overran and the magical girls had retreated.

"Mom, what are we going to do?" Tatsuya asked, keeping his voice low. "If we stay here, those demons will find us."

Junko shook her head. "I don't know what those things are, but they're not getting you."

Tatsuya felt the hand of his father on his shoulder. "Tatsuya, you have to run."

"I'm _not_ leaving you two," Tatsuya said. "This is my fault. If I had warned you, or paid more attention to the signs—if I hadn't _ignored_ what I was a part of—"

"Tatsuya, what are you _talking_ about?" Junko asked. "What _are_ those things?"

"They're demons, products of curses, embodiments of mankind's despair. Those teenage girls back there were _mahou shoujo,_ like from anime."

Junko gaped. "And you _know_ about this?"

"Yes! Which is why I can't go. Mom, you're _not_ a warrior. There are people who are fated to fight those things, to make those sacrifices. You're not one of them."

"And you are, Tatsuya?" Junko asked.

"I might as well be. Mom, please don't do this."

Tatsuya could see the fear in Tomohisa's eyes as he spoke. Every feature of his face shouted abject terror. But—wasn't there something else?

"Tatsuya," he said, "we've spent fourteen years raising you. You know how proud we are of you. But it's our job to care for you."

 _"Why?"_ Tatsuya asked. "Because I'm weak? Because I'm useless, even though I shouldn't be? I pushed my sister away! I rejected what I saw!"

Tatsuya buried himself in his parents' arms. "Please, don't leave me."

He could feel the miasma congealing around him, injecting darkness into his mind.

"I don't want my parents to die."

If there was a hell, Tatsuya now knew what his soul would feel like inside it. His voice cracked.

"You can't leave me like this."

What was he doing? His family was two inches from death, and here he was, being useless. Tears streamed down his face, and his chest heaved with his sobs, but he wasn't putting a single ounce of the effort he was making to cry into saving his parents.

He was an animal, bound to his hysteric instincts, and there was nothing he could do about it. Despair, the black sword, cut deep into Tatsuya's chest and pinned him to the spot.

Junko wiped away Tatsuya's tears and kissed him on the forehead. "Tatsuya, I'm not going there to die. I can keep myself safe."

"No, those are demons! You don't understand—"

"Tomohisa," Junko said. "Keep our son safe."

Tatsuya took a deep breath. "No."

Tomohisa wrapped his fingers around Tatsuya's hand. "Son—"

"If you have to leave, then at least both of you should go together. If you go with me, you'll have to take care of me, and I'll just slow you down," Tatsuya said. Some of the pain melted away. "Don't worry. I'll have help."

The demons were edging closer by the second. A shadow began creeping up the face of the truck, slowly growing longer.

"Please," Tatsuya said. "Just this once, believe me. I—I can't help but think that if you two split up, something terrible will happen. _Please."_

Slowly, Junko nodded.

Tatsuya's mother and father wrapped themselves in a tight, brief hug. Then, Junko held up three fingers.

When she was done counting, Tatsuya turned and ran for his life. He couldn't bring himself to look back. Soon, he was far away.

-x-

Ten minutes later, a point of white light, almost painful to behold, shone over the stadium. For one second, the demons were still, fixated on the light above them.

Akemi Homura came down from the skies on wings that glowed as bright as the sun. Purple light flashed as she lashed out with her bow, cutting down demon after demon. Those who had resigned themselves to death, huddled in corners and behind rubble, stood and looked on in awe.

The demons' collective moan rumbled louder until it became a roar. They swarmed towards the recently arrived magical girl, a mass of white limbs and heads that swirled upwards.

The storm took on a different character and now the lightning bolts were purple and the clouds were sickly pale. Demon flesh yielded to Homura's onslaught of arrows, making the sky froth with spilled miasma. Claw and laser bolt swept at Homura in an unending flurry of blows, forcing her to dart about like an insect. After a minute, the demons' remains rained down from the sky, soiling the ground with their stench. A second later, Homura herself landed.

"Where the _fuck_ have you been?"

Sakura Kyouko was colored red three times over, first from her hair, second from her costume, and third from her blood. Using her spear for support, she limped over to Homura.

When only silence met Kyouko, she snarled. "What's the fucking matter, huh?" she said. "You couldn't have come until—"

"How many?" Homura asked.

Kyouko's grip on her spear tightened. "Ikezawa Shizune and Suzuki Misaki are both dead. Taniguchi Ayumu is barely hanging on to life. All of us are injured. As for civilians, you can count the bodies if you want."

Homura turned to two magical girls who arrived behind her. Reinforcements from other parts of the prefecture were arriving in response to the news of the disaster. "Gather up any survivors," Homura said. "Teach them about the threat. Then evacuate them as far away as possible. If demons arrive, contact me immediately."

The magical girls nodded and took off.

Homura immediately staggered and clutched a hand to her side. Kyouko rushed forwards. "You're hurt."

"It is nothing serious."

"Well, one thing we don't need to worry about very much is grief cube shortages," Kyouko said, reaching into her pocket to dig a pair out. "Take these."

"Thank you," Homura said. Her soul gem glowed as her wounds began to slowly regenerate. "I'm sorry that I didn't arrive earlier."

Kyouko sighed. "Were you at the temple?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm sorry for being such a bitch to you for showing up late. There's nothing that can be helped. I'm just frustrated. How the fuck did this happen?"

Homura's eyes narrowed. "The Incubators have made repeated references to some sort of disastrous event. While I doubt they knew the exact specifics, the warning signs were there. We failed to act."

Another magical girl walked up beside Kyouko. Exhaustion draped itself across Tomoe Mami's shoulders, and she bore its cross while still maintaining some modicum of grace. "Good to see you here, Homura," Mami said. "We needed your help."

"It was nothing."

"So," Kyouko said, "what the hell are we supposed to do now? Our contracts sure as fuck didn't include anything about this."

Mami looked behind her. "We have to continue fighting. It's our duty, isn't it?"

"Fuck, Mami, we already sold our souls."

"It would feel too wrong if we were to abandon these people. We would be betraying ourselves."

"But you know we can't possibly save them all," Kyouko said.

"No," Mami said, "but we have to try."

Homura looked up. Her expression was the same stony face as it always was. "I am inclined to agree with Mami. We are _mahou shoujo._ What else is left for us?"

It had been eleven years since the month of eternity. Homura knew that both Mami and Kyouko were different people now. She had known them for a period of time longer than they would know themselves, but their behavior during that time had been warped by the circumstances of that world.

She had spent eleven years in the company of those two now. Eleven years hearing her name spread amongst the _mahou shoujo_ in whispered reverence, eleven years watching girls who would never dream of cooperation set aside hostilities and recognize authority. She had watched as Mami reached for whatever allies they could get, and when she caught them, to hold them tight and never let them go. She had watched as Kyouko, once hostile and bad-tempered, became grudgingly cooperative and bad-tempered. Having Mami around had always helped put Kyouko in a good mood.

But what had Homura done in those eleven years?

They were nothing but eleven years without Madoka.

 _I'd hate to be the bringer of bad news,_ Kyubey said, suddenly sliding between Homura's ankles. _But it appears this incident is not isolated._

 _What is it?_ Homura asked.

_Well, the incident—we Incubators have taken to calling it_ _Götterdämmerung—has had worldwide effects. That white tower serves as a focal point from which miasma mutates in a manner identical to this city's miasma. The region under effect is spreading dramatically._

_Identical to this city?_ Mami asked. _But then that would mean…_

 _An epidemic of vastly multiplied real-world demon manifestation,_ Kyubey said. _Correct. Quite a shame. I had grown almost fond of you humans, and now you face extinction. I am sorry that I could not warn you. The human race has been the most successful and furthest progressed Incubator program, so we had no precedent of exponential magical girl and demon population growth. We were just as surprised as you, though the findings procured from Götterdämmerung will prove useful to us for billion of years to come. My condolences to you for your loss._

There was silence for some time.

"What?" Kyouko asked. "Look, you can't just say that. What do you mean, extinction?"

_By Incubator projections, human civilization as you know it will collapse within half a year. Human military strength is too weak to combat the demons. Your thermonuclear weapons can harm the demons, but they cannot touch the miasma. Magical girl support is required, but, sadly, we never foresaw the necessity of cooperation between human military and magical girls, so we never raised recruitment rates to the level necessary to facilitate such a relationship._

Homura flipped her hair over her shoulder. "It doesn't matter. Does it?"

Homura's eyes turned to Kyouko and Mami. The ground crunched under Kyouko's foot as she shifted uncomfortably.

Mami placed a hand on Kyouko's shoulders. "Is there…"

"We're really screwed, aren't we?" Kyouko said. Her voice was flat and without emotion. "I never thought it'd come to this."

Mami turned to Homura with an expectant look in her eyes. She met nothing. Homura only stood there, staring back at her.

Finally, Homura said, "I'm sorry."

"Hey, don't be. I got myself into this mess," Kyouko muttered.

"Kyouko, don't say that," Mami said, drawing Kyouko close. "Everything…it's going to be all right. Homura?"

Homura only nodded slowly. "As long as I am alive, I will do my best to ensure your survival. Although I am not sure how secure my life is. Anyway, regardless of how the rest of the world is doing, our first duties are to Mitakihara and its citizens. Once we protect them, we can worry about the rest of the world."

"But what then?" Kyouko asked. "What do we do after that? Satisfy ourselves with eking out some pathetic existence, hounded by the demons?"

"It doesn't matter," Homura said, "as long as we win the next battle."

Kyouko snorted. "I don't suppose you have any gods that we can pray to, do you?"

Something strange and warm shot through Homura as she felt her hand flex.

"Why do you ask such a strange question?"

"You know what they call religion," Kyouko said. "Opium of the masses. And let me tell you, I could sure use something to distract myself from this sorry goddamn state of affairs. Don't _you?_ "

"Cynicism has no place here," Homura said, her voice a bit sharper than she had intended. "If we give up, we lose. What we need is pragmatism. Otherwise, we will not be able to save these people. And for what other reason did we contract with the Incubator?"

Homura glanced down before she resumed speaking, her voice softer now. "We've all spoken about this. Everything we might have stood to gain from our wishes has passed. All that remains for us is to demonstrate that we still have a reason to exist. Do you still want to be alive?"

Kyouko shook her head. "Easy for you to say. How do you believe so easily?"

"Haven't you heard the rumors? About a Goddess, savior of _mahou shoujo_?"

There was a slight shift in Kyouko's gaze as she narrowed her eyes. "You can't honestly…"

"I believe in her."

"Well," Kyouko said, leaning forwards, "even if this stupid fairy godmother exists, she won't save us until we're dead, will she? Fat lot of good that'll do us."

"Kyouko, please," Mami said, stepping hesitantly forwards.

"There is no need," Homura said. "I will believe what I believe, and Kyouko is free to do the same."

"Right," Kyouko muttered.

Mami bit her lip. "None of us have family beyond the other two. Please, let's not argue. No matter what happens, let's stay together, all right?"

"Mami," Kyouko said, blinking. "Are you okay?"

"I don't want to lose you. Either of you."

 _I'm sorry to interrupt,_ Kyubey said, _but demon incursions are popping up over this city. There are citizens trapped inside the miasma. The magical girls of this city have been scattered and disorganized, but they will look to you for leadership. Magical girls from the surrounding areas are also arriving, bringing civilians with them. They seek your protection, and they can provide firepower. What would you have them do?_

Homura nodded. "I will go. You two stay."

"No," Mami said. "There are more civilians here. More people to protect. If the remnants of this stadium fall, then the casualties will be enormous. You need to take the magical girls and civilians here and lead them to safety. Kyouko and I can handle the rest of the city. We'll gather allies along the way."

"How are your grief cube supplies?"

Mami smiled. "We'll manage."

Two silver muskets slid out of Mami's sleeves. She caught them by the butts and rested them against her shoulders. "Kyouko?" she asked.

"Fuck it," Kyouko said, materializing her spear. "I can't very well leave you to this madness alone, can I? Let's do this."

The two of them took off, specks of red and yellow darting away into the distance.

Homura spent a Moment watching Mami and Kyouko fly away before turning around to walk towards the main mass of magical girls. Behind the magical girls were clusters of civilians, dazed and confused. The magical girls ran up to her. She saw by the fear in their eyes that they were on the edge of despair. They were lost, and to them, the chance of salvation was nothing but a fantasy.

Homura didn't know how to make it real.

"A-Akemi-san," one said. "What do we do?"

"Is there anybody with an obligation to family or friends? Anybody who is too afraid to fight? Anybody who wishes to give up?"

Homura stood ramrod straight, black hair flowing behind her, face as still as stone. Fearful silence met her.

"These people are under our protection," Homura said. "We are going to fight to keep them alive, as is our duty, and if duty so requires it, we will die to defend them."

A few of the girls instinctively flinched at the bright glow that emanated from Homura as she extended her wings. "Let's go."

-x-

 _This way,_ said the voice in Tatsuya's mind.

Mitakihara, over the course of the last fifteen minutes, had been reduced to hell. Götterdämmerung's storm had torn skyscrapers apart, leaving their destroyed husks littered around the city. Enough miasma littered the streets to make Tatsuya gag. He shuddered when he looked around him and saw that there was absolutely nobody. The city had been skeletonized.

A roar that sounded like fireworks made Tatsuya stop in his tracks. In the distance, he could see smoke rising.

 _The JSDF has scrambled jets,_ Kyubey said, opening communication with Tatsuya. _But you don't have to worry about that. Whose directions are you following?_

 _Who knows?_ Tatsuya said, beginning to run again.

 _Where are you taking me?_ Tatsuya thought, this time not addressing the Incubator.

 _A safe place,_ Madoka said. _You have to hurry, Tatsuya._

Tatsuya nodded. _Are Mom and Dad safe?_

 _Yes. Magical girls are taking care of them_.

_Thank goodness._

Tatsuya, still following Madoka's unspoken directions, ducked into a side street. Behind him, demons began taking note of the young boy, lone prey in an empty city. They began streaming after him, their guttural moans echoing throughout the abandoned streets.

Tatsuya took one fearful glance behind him and then started sprinting, heart beating relentlessly in his ears.

The first demon snaked its way up to Tatsuya before knocking him to the side with a swipe of its clawed hands. Tatsuya felt pain shoot up his shoulder as he slammed into a car.

Later, Tatsuya would have no idea how he managed to get to his feet and run before lasers lacerated the car behind him. There were at least three dozen different alarms sounding in his mind, each one telling him to panic. Another laser hit him square in the back, and he sprawled forwards onto the pavement.

Tatsuya looked around him and saw that he was at the intersection of two streets. Dim lighting cast long shadows around the street corner. He had landed at the door of a peculiar-looking apartment, constructed in a European style not seen in Mitakihara very often.

The demons were on him in full force now. Tatsuya could feel the last remaining sparks of the will to live be sucked away into their rattling gasps. The miasma curled around his body, as if to welcome him into its embrace. Wasn't despair the easiest option? To sleep, without having to fight an endless, pointless battle—to rest, no longer having to worry about the troubles of the mortal world?

_Mom and Dad told you to live on._

As the demons rushed towards him, Tatsuya groped upwards and found the door handle. Grasping at it, he opened the door and tumbled in.

Once inside, he couldn't even hear the sounds of the demons scrabbling against the wall to find him. Akemi Homura's apartment proved remarkably well-protected.

Immediately, Tatsuya collapsed onto the floor. Over the course of the next five minutes, he managed to crawl his way onto one of the couches scattered around Homura's apartment. The warm wetness sticking to his shoulder and back told him how badly injured he was. He had no idea how he was supposed to stop the bleeding.

 _Sadly, I cannot help you without magic,_ Kyubey said, _and you, as a boy, have no potential to become a magical girl._

"Thank you for trying, Kyubey," Tatsuya said. The way he had to force the words out of his throat was somewhat alarming.

"Do you think that I'm going to die here?" he asked.

Kyubey climbed onto the foot of the couch. _It is a possibility. Quite an unfortunate one. I regret that I never managed to figure you out, anomaly._

 _Kyubey?_ Tatsuya said. _Can you do me a favor?_

_Yes, Tatsuya?_

_Could you leave, please? If I'm going to die, I'd like to do so with some privacy._

_Certainly, Tatsuya._

Tatsuya couldn't even hear the sound of the Incubator's feet as it padded out of the room. He let his weight drop onto the couch, feeling the springs beneath him sink under his limp form. Above him, a giant, bizarre pendulum swung back and forth.

 _So this_ , Tatsuya thought _, was where Akemi Homura had lived_. She had been enigmatic, cold and ruthless. But she also had possessed a heart, right? That was how the stories went. Akemi Homura was driven not by anything that belonged to her, but by love.

Tatsuya thought about the vague memories he had of a teenaged girl, towering over him as he scratched doodles into sand, smiling serenely down at him. If he saw her again now, what would he see in her eyes? After all, the story's end was still a mystery. Was it one where love and courage would prevail, or one where despair ultimately overcame the heroes?

Considering the world around him, Tatsuya could hardly believe that it was the first case.

As his blood poured out of him, Tatsuya felt the strength drain out of his limbs. His mind was becoming clouded with a light haze. Where would he go after death?

His eyes tracked the motion of the pendulum, solemnly oscillating without caring that Kaname Tatsuya was about to die. Something tasted bitter in his mouth when he thought how painful it would be for his parents to learn, eventually, of his death.

But this was it, wasn't it? He had never really been part of the magical world. That was why the Incubators couldn't help him.

"But I can."

Tatsuya's eyes widened as he struggled to turn his head around. "Madoka?"

Warm hands cradled Tatsuya's head. His body was filled with a sudden rush of warmth and relief. As he looked up, he saw a woman, pink hair framing her soft face, smiling down at him.

"What kind of big sister would I be," Madoka said, "if I let you die here?"

Tatsuya stared in silence for a few long seconds. His shirt and the couch were both soaked in warm blood. Finally, he said, "Please, I don't want to die."

Light poured out of Madoka's form, enveloping Tatsuya. The pain in his shoulder and back began to slowly drain away. Tatsuya gripped the couch as something passed through him, electrifying him.

Then it was gone, and while there was still a stinging throb in his back and limbs, he couldn't feel his life dripping out of him anymore.

Madoka's body flickered in and out of existence as she smiled at him. Tatsuya's eyes widened. "What's wrong?"

"It's all right," Madoka said. "In this world, I only have influence in a few areas, and healing isn't really one of them. I had to devote a lot of resources to doing that, so I had to sacrifice a bit of my presence."

"I don't know what any of that means!" Tatsuya said, trying to stand up. Exhaustion and pain washed over him and pushed him back down. Madoka watched quietly.

Slowly, Tatsuya sunk back into the couch. "I don't know who you are, Madoka. And I don't know what's going on. The Incubator says that Mom and Dad are safe, but I don't know for how long. What am I supposed to do?"

"It is your destiny to fight," Madoka said. "You must embrace it. You know it, don't you? Everything I've told you in my stories applies to you as well. There are heroes of magic, and you must join them."

Tatsuya bit his lip. "How? The Incubators never offered to contract with me. I'm just a normal boy! I never asked for this!"

There was something in Madoka's eyes, but Tatsuya couldn't identify exactly what. _Pride,_ maybe, but her words seemed to carry regret in them. "You are my brother. You could always see me for a reason. Though your blood grants you a destiny of victory, your fear blocks that path. You're stuck, Tatsuya."

"So what if I'm afraid? I don't _want_ to fight those monsters! And I shouldn't _have_ to, either! Madoka, who _are_ you? I've always wondered that for my entire life. I know that you're my sister. I _know_ that you're real. I won't believe otherwise. But now you come to me, when those _things_ have started killing everything, and it's like you expect me to know all the answers. All you've done for me is tell me bedtime stories, Madoka, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do with them. I don't want to join your world."

Madoka's voice was quiet. "That world is the only place I am."

"But I can talk to you outside of it," Tatsuya said. "I don't care how real that world is; I have a sister. Who cares about witches and demons and magical girls? Those are all part of the stories. They weren't ever supposed to affect me."

When he was a child, Tatsuya had often thought that Madoka was stunningly beautiful, with her flowing pink hair and radiant white robes. Sitting next to him now, Tatsuya could almost believe that his sister was a normal human being. She was his family.

Tatsuya turned his head away. "You know, even if I don't have that many friends, Mom and Dad love me. _You_ love me. That was all I needed. Dad is kind and gentle. Mom is strong and brave. And you showed me what it was like to be good and to have hope. If the only thing I had was that reminder, that there were people like my family living in the world, I could keep moving. When I was sad or angry, you were always there for me."

The aching in Tatsuya's body was only a dull throb compared to the storm taking place in his mind. "I don't want any part in the world of magic. It's almost killed my Mom and Dad. And it made my sister whatever she is now, somebody torn apart from her family and friends. I don't _care_ what my destiny is if it involves the world of magic. And the real world never did anything for me. It only rejected and mocked me, for seeing something that didn't belong in it. So what should _I_ do for _it?_ I can't fight anyway. I'm fine in the middle, alone."

"You can't stay alone forever, Tatsuya. Mom and Dad can never understand everything about you. One day, you'll have to rise up to become yourself."

"I can't."

Madoka's smile was more regretful than anything else. "Then you're not ready."

"For _what?"_

"For what I have to tell you," Madoka said. As she stood up, her hair fluttered behind her. Tatsuya struggled to stand with her, to meet her, but he couldn't find the strength. "I have to go now."

"Madoka, _please,"_ Tatsuya said. "I don't want to die. _Please_."

"There's only so much that I can do for you," Madoka said. "You have to understand that I can't be everywhere at once for you. If I had everything my way, you'd be safe. _Everyone_ would be safe, and there would be no suffering, and no reason to despair. So do you understand how much it hurts me to see the world like this, and to be powerless to stop any of it?"

Tatsuya's eyes were wide as he stared at Madoka in silence.

"There are girls who need me. There are more of them now than there have been at any other point in history. Even so, I won't forget you. I promise."

Madoka waved her hand, and a small ring appeared in Tatsuya's palm. On cursory observation, it was similar to the rings that the _mahou shoujo_ wore, but there was no gem set inside it..

"Keep that," Madoka said, "to remember my promise. And, when you're ready, put it on. I can't be everywhere at once, and I can't seek people out. I can only go to those that call for me. Do you understand?"

Slowly, Tatsuya nodded.

"Be brave, Tatsuya. Have hope."

Madoka's form flickered before vanishing entirely, leaving behind nothing but the scent of roses.

Two hours later, Tatsuya found the strength to stagger into the apartment's kitchen. Like everything else in the place, the walls were sterile white. It reminded Tatsuya of a hospital. There were no cooking ingredients, only rows and rows of identical prepackaged food. Tatsuya was just glad that there was something to eat. After hunting around in dusty cabinets for a while longer, Tatsuya found some gauze to wrap around his wounds.

Homura's room was tucked into the corner of the apartment. The computer, thankfully, still functioned. Even though the internet was down, Tatsuya still found dozens of files saved to Homura's hard drive—how to handle rifles and ammunition, current events taking place within the yakuza, JSDF troop locations, and several communications with other magical girls. There was an article on first aid which Tatsuya saved to the desktop. He needed to stay alive somehow.

One file stood out from the others. Its filename was only "memories," as opposed to the detailed descriptions of the other documents, and when Tatsuya tried to open it, it was password protected. On a whim, Tatsuya tried entering "Madoka," but the file remained locked. If he tried to guess all the obvious passwords that he could think of, Tatsuya would probably drive himself insane.

Later, when he was kneeling on the floor, shoveling over-salted teriyaki into his mouth, Tatsuya reached into his pocket and put the ring on.

Nothing happened.

-x-

END INTERMISSION PART 1

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really just an excuse for me to pull more pseudo-biblical pretentious bullshit for you to slog through.


	7. Intermission Part 2: And in Our Hearts

A week had passed since the demons had attacked, and doubt had burrowed its way into Mami's mind. Death was not just a real possibility, but a likely certainty, and every day was a struggle to justify the continued fight.

The only thing preventing her from taking a step back was the knowledge that there were girls who looked up to her.

Mami was beginning to walk back towards the camp when a magical girl landed softly in front of her. Her costume was torn in places, and stains of dirt and blood streaked across the cloth. The girl, breathless, began to bow, before Mami raised a hand and shook her head to stop her.

"I haven't seen you here before," Mami said, making sure to smile. "What's your name?"

"F-Fujioka Mio," the girl said. "Shinjuku prefecture. I came here with all the refugees I could bring."

"Good work," Mami said, and the girl blushed. Throughout Japan, there were rumors of girls who were good enough at what they did to survive for a _long_ time. After magical girls made it out of the first year alive, they were veterans. After ten, they became minor legends. And now, Kyouko and Mami's unofficial command of the magical girls in the Mitakihara city and surrounding area had expanded to most of Honshu.

Why did they look up to her? What did they expect to see from her? If she were a younger woman, Mami wasn't sure how she would react. But now, she had people to lead, and even if, realistically, there was no way they could hold out indefinitely against the demons, she could still pretend like they could.

"Food and water are both running low," Mio said. "We've had a few girls working around the clock to conjure supplies, but even with pretty much infinite grief cube supplies, the strain on their soul gems is getting to them. They'll have to stop soon. There's no way all these people can survive in these camps if we don't get back to the cities soon."

"We're working on that," Mami said. "Until then, just concentrate on keeping the camps stable and the people alive. Can you do that?"

Mio nodded firmly. "Yes."

"Good. Get all the help you can," Mami said, "and do the magical girl name proud."

"I won't fail you," the girl said. Then she turned and took off.

Something flapped in the wind behind Mami. Smile falling from her face for only a moment, Mami turned to greet the new visitor.

"Yo."

Exhaustion immediately painted itself across Mami's face. "Hello, Kyouko."

"It's funny, isn't it?" Kyouko said. "I always used to think how unfair it was. There I was, in the dirt, starving and bleeding like a fucking dog while everyone around me got to live in their city of glass. I'd always think how nobody in this city would ever, ever understand what it would be like to be poor, and that if they did, they wouldn't last a week. And now here we are."

Mami sighed. "Things seem to be getting worse lately. I had to deal with people on the brink of rioting yesterday. Even with the JSDF helping, we won't be able to hold out much longer. The Incubator told me that the rest of the world is in about the same state. Demon swarms are ubiquitous."

"That thing," Kyouko said, pointing a finger at the column of white mass leaning down from the sky. "Götterdämmerung. If we bring it down…"

"Well, things would certainly get better for us if we brought down the locus of miasma in this area," Mami said. "But nothing would happen for the rest of the world. Whatever Götterdämmerung did to the local miasma, the effect cascaded into a worldwide phenomenon. It's permanent."

Kyouko chewed her lip. "Damn."

The two of them stood on a hill overlooking the camps. Fires poured smoke into the air, and the smell of burning garbage was only marginally more palatable than the miasma itself. Hastily-constructed shacks were packed close to each other as far as they eye could see. It had taken two hellish days of work to construct the shelters, desperately trying to keep the civilians alive while demons hounded them. Above them, the black night sky was clouded over, hiding the light of the stars and moon. In the past, one might have seen planes streak across the sky, but now the demons controlled the air as well as the earth.

"I need to go inside," Mami said, quietly. "Care to join me?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty fucking sick of having to look at this place too," Kyouko said. "Let's go."

Mami's shelter was marginally more comfortable than the average refugee's. She had managed to salvage some trinkets from her apartment before the place was taken by the miasma: a tea set, a photograph, a notebook. The shelter was a strange mix of charming and utterly destitute—they had been raised by magic, so there were ornate flower designs embossed into the walls, but the walls were made of hardened dirt, there wasn't a floor, and an earthen smell permeated the room.

"Do you know where Homura is?" Kyouko asked, leaning against the wall.

Mami nodded. "She went into Mitakihara," she said, "to gather any stragglers."

"It's fucking crazy," Kyouko said. "Isn't she scared of dying?"

"I wouldn't worry about her too much. It _is_ Homura, after all."

"Going into massive demon swarms without backup is always dangerous, dammit." Kyouko sighed and leaned against the wall. "Remember?"

A shadow passed over Mami's face as she fixed her gaze to the floor. "Do you still think about Miki-san?"

"Why the hell wouldn't I?"

"I expected that you would," Mami said. "I still do, too. It's unfair that we left her behind."

Kyouko laughed—a short, harsh, bark. "Of course it is."

"But then, that's why we need to protect this world, isn't it?" Mami said. "So that her sacrifice was not in vain."

"Why the hell would she even have to sacrifice anything in the first place?" Kyouko asked. "Sometimes, I wonder. What kind of God would permit this sort of injustice? A few people who never asked to be any sort of hero, forced into awful lives because of fate. And in the end, all their sacrifices might just be pointless."

"It's awful, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

Something strange occurred to Mami, and she raised an eyebrow. "Is something wrong, Kyouko?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You don't have any food on you."

Kyouko shook her head. "You honestly think I'd prance about munching on some goddamn Pocky when there are starving kids out there?"

Mami smiled. "So you _do_ care."

"It's not like that," Kyouko said. "It just wouldn't be—it wouldn't be dignified. You got it?"

Sighing, Kyouko walked forwards and sat down by Mami. "Look, I can't pretend not to care at least one tiny bit about these people," she said. "That's what makes it so goddamn difficult. After—after I left you, for that time, I did some pretty awful shit. And I don't want to go back to that, you know? But at the same time, I'm scared for my fucking life. It would be so easy to run away, but if I did, I'd just be the same stupid fucking child who gave up all those years ago."

"I'd like to think I taught you well."

"Hey," Kyouko said, "you're hardly even my senior anymore. We've both been at this business for a pretty long time."

"All right, all right," Mami said. "I'll grant you that."

Kyouko shifted in place. "You know, this reminds me. Do you ever get the feeling that you ever taught a younger magical girl besides me?"

Mami furrowed her brow. "What? No," she said. "Why would I?"

The invisible hole in both their hearts made itself briefly known before becoming numb again.

Telepathic noise immediately pierced through both of the magical girls' heads. _We need help! There's been a demon attack on the perimeter—_

Mami drowned out the rest of the message. She already knew where the attack was by her soul gem, and she was too busy trying to figure out _how_ the attack had occurred. In a quick flash of light, she transformed into her costume. Next to her, Kyouko did the same.

"Miasma spawns near large population concentrations," Kyouko said. "We would've gotten advance warning if it had come from the city. They must have spawned nearby. These demons are going to be constantly on our fucking trail, aren't they?"

Mami pressed her lips together. "It seems so. Let's go."

As they darted towards the fight, they could hear the crackle of gunfire and the roar of jets in the distance, remnants of the JSDF lending whatever support they could to the magical girls. Some civilians had even volunteered themselves as militia, taking up arms to fight against the demons. But demon lasers crisscrossed across the sky and earth, slicing apart anything that came close.

 _Hey, Mami?_ Kyouko said.

Mami could sense the change in atmosphere as normal space shifted into miasma. _Yes?_

_I've told you how sorry I am that I left you when we were kids, right?_

_You have, Kyouko._

When Mami looked over at Kyouko, her eyes were fixed straight forwards. _There wasn't anybody left for me when my family died,_ she said. _I know you know how that feels. But I pushed you away even when you tried reaching out to me._

The two magical girls alighted on top of a hill overlooking the battle. Dozens of shelters lay broken, and rubble littered the ground. Blackness from the smoke blanketed the area.

 _You're like a sister to me,_ Kyouko said. _And I'd rather die than see my family hurt again. So even if I have to sacrifice something—_

"If you have to sacrifice anything," Mami said, speaking aloud, "we'll do it together."

Mami leveled her muskets downwards while Kyouko raised her spear. They shared a glance, fleeting yet certain, before diving into the demons.

-x-

A week passed, without any contact from the outside world, before the Incubator contacted Tatsuya again.

Tatsuya's skin prickled as the Incubator slid through his ankles. _Congratulation on staying alive,_ it said. _You are faring much better than the rest of Mitakihara City, or, indeed, much of the human population. I guess we have Homura's preparation to thank for this, don't we?_

Tatsuya's eyes tracked the pendulum swinging back and forth above him. He lay on his back, perfectly still, in the middle of the floor. There was nothing else for him to do but ponder the words Madoka had left for him. Even after contemplating the words for the past week, they remained bereft of meaning.

His destiny was to sit here and rot.

The Incubator clambered on top of his chest. Slowly, deliberately, it squatted and stared down at him.

"You know, Kyubey," Tatsuya said, not bothering to use telepathy, "I never had any real expectations of myself. And that was okay. What kind of person is obsessed with how useful they are when they're only fourteen years old? The world was wide and the future was long, and if I only kept living, then…surely I would find some sort of happiness, right?"

 _In all honesty, I feel sorry for you humans,_ Kyubey said. _I've seen many girls contract with me because they lack purpose in their life. For an Incubator, our purpose is to prolong survival. We're not very good at understanding what you call death. So we don't have to obsess over a fear of time running out. We just need to prolong the clock._

"That sounds miserable."

_To a human, I imagine it does._

Tatsuya lifted his arm up to the Incubator and ran his fingers through its fur. "Why have you come here?"

 _I came here as a messenger,_ Kyubey said, _because even if I don't understand why humans are obsessed with death, I understand that it is a fact, and something that I cannot avoid._

Tatsuya's arm froze. Slowly, he closed his eyes. "Out of curiosity, how many people have died?"

_Worldwide? Approximately one billion, two hundred million. Mitakihara has a far higher survival rate than most of the world. But, regardless of location, people die not only from demon attacks, but from a lack of resources, the collapse of human civilization, the wars that have broken out between newly-unstable states, and the mob rule that now dominates much of this planet._

"Then I shouldn't be surprised when somebody close to me dies, should I?"

_Your mother is dead, Tatsuya._

For a second, the room continued to exist and the pendulum continued to swing in dull silence, as if nothing had been said and nothing had happened.

Then, Tatsuya said, through his sobbing, " _Goddammit_. Of all the people who had to tell me that, it had to be _you?_ "

The Incubator made no reply.

"I—I _had_ to hear it from you," Tatsuya said. "Because I'm not out there. I could've heard it from Dad. Or a magical girl. Any random person who saw her die. _Any_ human being. I could've heard it from my sister, but she's abandoned me. I get to hear it from you, the one being in this entire universe completely incapable of caring about my mother's death."

_I'm sorry._

"No, you're not! You're _incapable of feeling regret!_ How could you possibly be sorry?"

 _I see that you are in considerable emotional distress,_ Kyubey said, _and I can imagine how inconveniencing the experience is._

"I could have stopped this," Tatsuya said. He raised his arm up to his face to cover his eyes. Some idiotic sense of pride made him do it. The Incubator didn't care if it saw Tatsuya cry. "If I had just gone out—stopped running away—"

_This confuses me. Have you learned more about your nature as an anomaly?_

Tatsuya bit down hard on his lips. _Even if I wanted to do something, there's nothing to be done. She said that I had a destiny, but there isn't any point to whatever destiny I might have. How can somebody like me, who never wanted to be important, accept something like that? It's impossible. And this is the price I pay, isn't it? I get to watch as my family dies._

_It really is a natural tendency for you humans to want to be heroes, isn't it? Well, this should be obvious to me. It's what I base my business on, after all._

_What do they want me to sacrifice? How could I possibly be a hero? If only I can save this world, then it isn't a world worth saving._

_Do you want to hear about my experiences with human beings pertaining to this matter?_ Kyubey asked. _I believe that you will find it enlightening. Perhaps helpful. I don't know._

Tatsuya didn't say anything. With lightly padded steps, Kyubey moved off Tatsuya and began to pace across the room.

 _Most humans,_ Kyubey began, _sit on a spectrum of "cynical" to "optimistic." Or at least, this is the factor that is most salient to me, because I have to work with magical girls. Makes sense, doesn't it?_

 _You are understandably cynical concerning the world of magic,_ Kyubey said. _It has done nothing but inconvenience you, really. But I find that, if you were a girl, you would have made a good magical girl. Ultimately, you exhibit characteristics consistent with the optimistic types. You have spoken to me of your stories, and of the mysterious outside force that makes you an anomaly. Certainly, when you were a child, these two things engendered within you those optimistic tendencies. It's a question of whether or not you believe in things like hope or heroism. Something that cannot be seen. And I, as much as it pains my empiric-seeking tendencies, cannot discount the power of hope. I have done business off it for the past several millennia. It must exist somehow._

Tatsuya took several seconds to open his mouth. "What's your point?"

 _It would be silly and pointless,_ Kyubey said, _if you were to languish here on account of cynicism, trapped by the stranger you've made yourself into. Even I recognize your potential as an anomaly. Do not waste it. I will return only to bring more news, whether it is good or bad. Do you want to know how your mother died?_

A minute of silence passed before Tatsuya answered, "Yes."

_Your mother knew that the Akemi Homura leading the forces of magic against the demons was the same Akemi Homura from your childhood, and so she, along with your father, planned on finding Homura and asking her to help them find you._

Tatsuya's eyes watered with tears again. His mother would never find him.

_The humans formed a militia to fight against the demons. Kaname Junko didn't dream of joining, of course, and neither did your father. Both had a family to go back to and a son to find. But a demon attack cut deep into the camp, and Kaname Junko was caught in the crossfire._

The Incubator turned to leave. Silently, it stepped into the shadows coating the corners of the apartment.

 _One last thing,_ it said, half of its body now cloaked in darkness. _The protective magic on Akemi Homura's apartment is not infinitely durable without her maintenance. Miasma is already beginning to leak inside. Soon, demons will be able to enter. I'm not sure when._

Then the Incubator vanished entirely.

Slowly, Tatsuya picked himself off the ground and trudged to the bathroom. A couple days ago, Tatsuya had slipped and fallen into the mirror, cracking it. As he looked at his reflection inside the mirror, he could see the wound on his shoulder, still unhealed, and the lines of fatigue drawn across his face.

His mother hadn't died gloriously. Tatsuya, trapped in the barren cage of Homura's apartment, doubted that his death would be very notable either.

The terrible injustice of it all stung at him. What had the world done that warranted death to sweep over it? There was surely no heaven for humanity to look towards, or else the demons would be angels, and the passage into death would be sweet. Instead, extermination meant disappearance, and the one tiny corner of the universe that humanity had once occupied would be free from humanity. And humanity would be gone.

Tatsuya looked into the mirror and wondered what he was doing to stop it. His knuckles whitened against the sink's marble countertop.

His mother had died so that he might live. At the very least, Tatsuya could try to survive. At the door of the apartment, invisible lines of smoke were creeping into the living room, indicating the miasma that encroached further and further inside.

He had to get out. The question was no longer that of what he had to sacrifice. Now, Tatsuya wanted to know how he could spite the demons' attempts to kill him.

The Akemi Homura of the stories was far better armed than the Akemi Homura of this reality, but Tatsuya found that Homura was still, as always, prepared. To Homura, a small handgun with a couple clips of ammunition along with two grenades must have been a miniscule arsenal in comparison to her conventional weaponry. But, when Tatsuya found the weapons after ransacking, with some fleeting regret, Homura's apartment, they represented an escape, no matter how unlikely.

Finding and learning how to use the firearms took the entire afternoon. Tatsuya stopped when the hunger pangs grew too insistent to ignore. Wincing slightly, he limped into the kitchen and found another package of dehydrated food. He opened it slowly and let his gaze slide across the contents.

 _The rest of the world is probably starving,_ Tatsuya thought, before reaching a hand inside and scooping paste into his mouth.

After he was done eating, Tatsuya closed his eyes and tried to pray. God probably didn't exist, and if he had once lived, now he was surely dead, so instead, he tried for his sister.

"Madoka?"

Deafening silence filled Tatsuya's ears.

If Madoka never spoke to him again, maybe he could convince himself that she had never been real in the first place. She was only a memory of a memory, then, an image blurred by the sands of time.

Tatsuya closed his eyes and tried to remember her kind voice. As a child, he hadn't fully understood why his classmates laughed at him and the adults around him spoke of him in whispers and behind raised hands. Madoka's smile shone upon everyone, even the people who couldn't see her, and Tatsuya didn't know what it meant to be rejected.

"Everyone," Madoka had said, "shares a home, and if we only could understand each other, then we would be family."

The Incubator had spoken of riots and the destruction of civilization, but Madoka's voice still echoed in Tatsuya's mind, deeper than what the Incubator told him. At what point would he truly forget Madoka?

For one moment, Tatsuya considered all sorts of ridiculous things he could do to try to get Madoka to answer him—something absurd, like meditation, or a trial of sacrifice.

Then Tatsuya sighed, shook his head, and got up. His eyes passed over the miasma leaking into the room. It was flowing slowly enough that Tatsuya could afford to sleep before attempting to escape.

As he closed his eyes, Tatsuya thought about all those billions of people, the family that Madoka had promised him, who had first rejected him, and now suffered under the darkness blanketing the Earth. When Tatsuya pictured them, he didn't feel compassion, but he didn't feel resentment either. They were ghosts, pale images of people he had never and would never know, inaccurate approximations of something he could only infer to exist.

Tatsuya remembered the sweet smell of his mother's perfume, the wrinkles in her suit that he could feel as he hugged her, the confident lilt to her voice as she spoke to him.

The stories that Madoka had told him were filled with death, but he had never experienced loss firsthand himself. What would it have been like, to be in the place of those who watched others die around them, and to have death be a permanent fixture in his life?

Whenever he stared into the future, his mother had always held his hand. Now, he gazed upon the endless expanse of time, and suddenly, his mother was no longer there.

Tatsuya started gathering all the memories he had of his mother, panicking each time he realized that he couldn't remember some tiny detail. A heavy blanket of shame covered him as he realized that he was crying again, hot tears streaking down his face, sobs shaking his body.

When he escaped, he would give his mother a funeral. Then he would run, and he would find Dad, and they would survive the apocalypse, damn whatever his fate was.

Tatsuya curled up into a ball on Homura's couch. As he fell asleep, exhausted by his own tears, Tatsuya's last thought was a hope that his mother had seen her daughter at least one last time before dying.

-x-

The next day, when Tatsuya was searching Homura's apartment one last time for useful items, he fired up Homura's computer and tried opening "memories" again.

The password screen popped up. Tatsuya's eyes passed over the expectantly blinking prompt, before he turned to leave the room forever.

A high-pitched beep from the computer prompted him to turn right back around.

The login prompt had disappeared. Tatsuya stared at the computer screen in bewilderment for a few seconds. Then, he closed his eyes and whispered, "Thanks."

Tatsuya didn't have very clear memories of Akemi Homura. She was a vague figure of his past, someone that he knew existed, but could not describe at all. The Akemi Homura of the stories was a different matter. She was strong, and firm, sometimes cold and cruel, but always acting with utmost selflessness.

But that was only a figure from his childhood bedtime stories. So, when Tatsuya started reading the document, he knew that he could have no real expectations of what the words might tell him of Akemi Homura.

The top of the document was filled with some abortive attempts at drawing. Tatsuya had noticed the electronic tablet gathering dust in the corner of Homura's room, but he had never given much thought to it. Homura's sketches were surprisingly good, and Tatsuya could believe, if only for a moment, that each one depicted a girl who actually existed. Every single one was of Madoka.

Tatsuya grew more uncomfortable with each sketch he scrolled past. The realism in the drawings was incongruous with the tiny, almost unnoticeable mistakes in them. It was as if they were actual pictures of Madoka, digitally altered so as to disorient anybody who had actually known her. Here her eyes were too far apart, here her face was too thin and graceful, here the shape of her nose was just slightly too round…

The last sketch was only half-finished. Below it, there was nothing but words.

Tatsuya blinked in surprise as he started reading about a black cat that Homura had adopted. Narrowing his eyes in confusion, Tatsuya began scanning the text, until he realized that Homura's writing didn't mention anything other than the cat. Sighing in frustration, Tatsuya scrolled down further. Now, Homura was making a painstaking record of her attempts to bake a cake similar to the kinds made in Mitakihara's desert shops. Tatsuya shook his head and kept scrolling.

He stopped when he saw the name "Miki Sayaka."

By the date that Homura had included, she had written these words eleven years ago. "Another one of Miki Sayaka's funerals were held today," Tatsuya read aloud. "I can't remember the last time I bothered to attend one of them, but I did, this time. It's strange to think about how everything that happens in this world cannot be reset.

"I couldn't bring myself to feel much at Miki Sayaka's funeral. I didn't even try very hard to convince myself that I was feeling anything. Madoka must hate me for that. After all, in the end, Sayaka was her friend, and I only stood coldly on the sidelines.

"Kyouko didn't take her death very well, as usual. She only knew Sayaka for a few weeks. Time will make her forget Sayaka, just like it does for all things, and just like it's done to me.

"I'll still give my condolences to her later."

Tatsuya's face stiffened as he saw the photograph of Sayaka attached to the document. She was smiling and waving at the camera, looking, in spite of what fate had prescribed for her, happy and alive.

"Still, people know that Miki Sayaka existed, and even if her family doesn't, her friends know what she did and how she died," Homura wrote.

Tatsuya read on. The date on the document was a few years later now, and Homura was no longer speaking of events in the present tense. She described worlds and timelines and things that no longer existed in this world. Tatsuya had heard the stories from Madoka first, and Madoka had always emphasized the noble struggle with which the characters fought.

"None of us were heroes," Homura wrote, "though it's understandable how somebody might mistake us as heroic. Tomoe Mami was kind and motherly but anybody paying attention would see her instability, her desperate cries for companionship, her profound internal weakness. Sakura Kyouko had some noble qualities—the urge to protect Sayaka, or mend her relationship with Mami, showing up in every timeline, again and again. Really, in comparison to the rest of us, it might be easy to latch onto her as the well-adjusted magical girl of the group, despite her traumatic background. But Kyouko's sense of justice died with her father. After that, any good she did, she did it only to prove to herself that she wasn't the villain she knew she was. She needed to validate herself as a hero, but she was doomed to never become one. Miki Sayaka suffered from the same curse. Perhaps that's why they gravitated towards each other. In her case, she was outwardly confidant in her heroism. But, internally, I think she always knew that she couldn't possibly play the role of the hero. She knew her own flaws better than anybody else.

"I wasn't a hero, of course. Near the end, I was probably about as villainous as the Incubators I fought against.

"I can't remember if Madoka was a hero. I try to remember what she said or did, but the timelines run into each other and turn everything into a featureless blur. She sacrificed herself, she believed in what she fought for, but she cried and cowered and stumbled just like any normal girl would. So, then, who was she, really? If I could make a second contract with the Incubator, I'd wish to know the answer to that question, because I can't ask her myself anymore."

Tatsuya was startled to find his eyes wet. It was rather comforting that they weren't tears of self-pity this time. Madoka had never explicated the nature of her relationship with Homura outright, but Tatsuya was old enough to fit the puzzle pieces together now. Homura had loved Madoka as desperately as Mami had sought friendship, Kyouko redemption, or Sayaka reciprocation. It was an ugly love, stained with violence and secrecy and despair.

But Madoka had loved her back, and it was love nonetheless.

As Tatsuya continued reading, he paused once again as he saw his own name appear in the text. This was dated only four years ago.

"I saw Tatsuya today. He was with Madoka's mother, Junko. Neither of them recognized me. I'd be surprised if they remembered me at all. I knew he was there because I recognized Madoka's mother, but I couldn't get a good luck at Tatsuya himself. I'm sure he's grown up into somebody that Madoka can be proud of. Madoka had a good mother. In only a few years, Tatsuya will be the same age Madoka and I were when we contracted. I wonder what he'll be like. I wish I could have seen his face."

Abruptly, Tatsuya navigated to the end of the document.

"I think I understand what's left for me, now," Homura wrote. "Some have said that a person only truly dies when her name is spoken for the very last time. If that's true, when I die, Madoka will die with me, which is too sad to believe. Is Madoka's legacy encapsulated only by her name? She gave herself up to fight for the fates of the _mahou shoujo,_ so that the world could become a kinder place. It was a grand sacrifice for a grand cause. And Madoka will only ever be forgotten when we stop fighting for that cause."

Tatsuya sat motionless for a few moments. He realized that he was afraid. It wasn't the familiar fear of the demons that gripped him now. Madoka hadn't spoken to him for a week. When he was a child, it had always been a given that Madoka would be with him. He was a teenager now: the cynical age, when he was supposed to start seeing the world through jade-tinted lenses. And anyway, people stopped playing with their imaginary friends when they were seven or eight. Maybe Madoka was never going to come back. And then, when would he forget her forever?

Tatsuya let loose a slow breath before he shut the computer off. Its internal battery would die in a few days, and even if he managed to make his way back to the apartment, he wouldn't be able to boot it up again.

The weapons he had scavenged from the apartment were waiting for him on the kitchen table. Tatsuya stared at them for a moment as he realized that he had no idea where to put them. He wished that he had Homura's shield.

He clipped the grenade to his pants' belt hook, which seemed somewhat unsafe, but it wasn't like Tatsuya knew what he was doing anyway. The couple clips of ammunition that he found barely managed to fit into his jacket pocket, but Tatsuya managed to do it.

Pistol in hand, Tatsuya strode up to the apartment door. He resisted the urge to look behind him, and then flung the door open.

Tatsuya wasn't sure what he expected to see when he opened the door, but his eyes began immediately scanning the ruined wasteland for some means of escape. It was a miracle that there was an upended motorcycle maybe a hundred meters away from him.

Demons crawled along the street like maggots on a corpse. There hadn't been any bodies when Tatsuya had first arrived at the apartment, but now, dead men and women were strewn about at random. The streets were stained red. Tatsuya guessed that a few desperate people had tried to make their way back into the city, and had been cut down. Maybe that was why the motorcycle was there.

Tatsuya took a deep breath, tensed his legs, and then broke out into a sprint.

The demons only noticed him when he was halfway to the motorcycle. Perhaps the idea of a human emerging from the city that they had destroyed, only to deliver itself straight into their waiting jaws, was too preposterous to consider. Food was food, though, and the demons began to swirl around him.

Tatsuya managed to fire off a couple shots before laser fire forced him to duck down behind cover. He didn't know how long he had to cower—a small path to the motorcycle had opened up because of his fire, but it obviously wasn't going to stay open long. Tatsuya counted to three and then started running again.

Two demons stood in his way. Tatsuya tried aiming his gun and running at the same time, but the pounding of his footsteps made accuracy impossible. He thought about slowing down, but the rattling breaths of the demons behind him reminded him what would happen if he were caught.

Three of his shots went wild before one, by either pure luck or divine providence, went through the first demon's head. The laser that the demon had been charging went wild, slicing through the second demon.

A laser from behind clipped Tatsuya's arm, eliciting a cry of pain. The familiar warmth of blood sticking like syrup to his skin began to spread once more. Biting down further whimpers, Tatsuya pulled the grenade out of his pocket, winced as he chipped his teeth pulling the pin out like it was done in the movies, and tossed the grenade behind him, far into the ranks of the demons.

Tatsuya was straddling the motorcycle, frantically flipping switches, when the grenade detonated. An invisible giant's hand struck Tatsuya, rattling his bones and almost forcing him off the motorcycle. Terror was the only thing compelling him to keep trying to turn the thing on.

It took Tatsuya a moment to comprehend what had happened when the motorcycle lurched forwards, and he almost fell off the vehicle for lack of balance. The, he realized— _I'm free—_ as he zoomed past the demons, faster than they could track him.

Tatsuya glanced over his shoulder at Götterdämmerung. The city lay in the shadow of the white tower, black darkness climbing across the skyscrapers to lead to the pillar of white. Tatsuya wrenched the wheel at the next intersection so that Götterdämmerung and the core of the city were at his back.

As he rode, a vague sense of unease swept over Tatsuya. Until now, the question of his destiny had been a non-starter, given that he had fully expected to die pathetically, holed up in Homura's apartment. But now, he lived.

Fear gradually seeped out of Tatsuya's body as the demons he passed grew sparser and sparser. He was leaving the former population centers and heading out into mostly empty countryside. Somewhere, he knew, were the largest refugee camps, taking shelter outside of the demon-infested cities. He would find his father there. And he would continue to survive.

The streets in front of Tatsuya were suddenly bathed in light. Startled, Tatsuya brought the motorcycle to a stop. Shadows elongated away from him, jagged points of blackness against the light. Wind began to swirl, picking up the lighter debris that covered the streets and tossing it upwards. The air tasted foul.

Tatsuya's mouth opened slightly as he turned around. Light shone over Götterdämmerung, brighter than the sun. From the tower, countless demons began crawling out, heading towards the light like moths to flame.

"What _is_ that?" he wondered aloud.

Purple explosions flashed against Götterdämmerung, and Tatsuya realized what the light was—a pair of wings on the back of Akemi Homura.

He watched her fight, transfixed, as she fought the demons around the spire. More demons began to emerge from the tower's base in the sky, but Homura seemed to be batting them aside effortlessly.

Without warning, the light in the sky grew blindingly intense, forcing Tatsuya to shield his eyes. A shockwave's bass boom passed over him a second later. When he looked up, blinking spots out of his eyes, he saw a single outstretched arm protruding from the white mass of Götterdämmerung, a single index finger pointing in silent condemnation. The finger steamed from the heat of the laser it had just produced. Homura was nowhere to be seen.

The demons began flying downwards, converging on something on the ground. Tatsuya knew, his palms beginning to sweat, that Homura had been brought down.

Tatsuya stared in silence as the wind whistled around his ears. No Incubator came to him to compel him forwards. Kyubey had other, more useful people to talk to. And his sister was as silent as she had been for the past week.

What could Tatsuya do, anyway?

Why wasn't there anybody who could _tell_ him what he could do?

Tatsuya imagined his sister. She was impossibly beautiful and graceful, with poise and composure in every movement, with compassion yet firmness in every word. Once, he had seen her with her bow, as long as he was tall, and he had marveled at the ferocity of the weapon.

But she was just a ghost, wasn't she? Something that couldn't touch anything in this world.

What could one human being do? Tatsuya knew that the answer to that question was "not much." He also knew that his sister would answer that question differently.

Tatsuya hadn't known that there was still faith left to spare in his body, but he found it, hiding somewhere in his empty bones, and placed it in Kaname Madoka, just for the moment. He gripped the motorcycle with a shaking hand, and, slowly, turned it around.

There was absolute silence as Tatsuya mounted the motorcycle. The city around him was broken, the sky above him dark, and his face was frozen in an expression that most would describe as "resigned." For a moment, Tatsuya thought that he might look like a knight, riding into battle. He didn't smile at the thought.

"Ride forth," he said, before clenching the accelerator.

-x-

Tatsuya knew that he was too late before he arrived at the base of Götterdämmerung. It had taken him almost twenty minutes, riding through the abandoned city, to reach his destination. As he drove closer and closer to Götterdämmerung, the demons began to flow thick like blood. Most of them ignored him. Their prey was further ahead, and one human was crumbs.

Homura hadn't come alone. When he found her, she was protected by Kyouko's shield magic. Kyouko's hands were glowing with a weak, sputtering light. Tatsuya could see the frustration etched into the lines on her face and the fear in her eyes.

Mami noticed him first. Her eyes widened momentarily in disbelief. No civilians could have possibly survived inside the city, and if there were any, this was the last place anybody would go. Her gaze lingered on him for a few moments, before Kyouko shouted something and Mami shot a volley of musket fire into the demons.

As Tatsuya came closer, he could see the wounds lying across Homura's body. The blood looked gentle as it flowed down Homura's body, like rose petals. Her soul gem's light struggled to manifest itself through the darkness.

Kyouko was too busy trying to heal Homura to acknowledge Tatsuya when he came up beside her. A few moments later, she gave up, and her hand stopped glowing. She slumped over Homura's body, head bowed low.

"I remember you, kid," she said, without turning around. "I don't know why you're here, but if you expect to somehow fucking live, I'd get a better crystal ball."

Tatsuya only half-listened to her. His eyes were fixed on Homura's face, numbed with exhaustion and pain. Recognition flashed across it as she made eye contact with Tatsuya.

Mami hit the ground beside Tatsuya with a thud. As she slowly got back onto her feet, she looked at Kyouko and said, "I don't have enough magic to keep this up."

Kyouko waved at her shield wall. "And I don't have enough magic to keep that up."

Absurdly, the two of them turned to Tatsuya, as if he could provide a solution. "You're a normal boy?" Mami asked.

Tatsuya nodded.

Kyouko began laughing. "Wow, what the fuck are you even doing here? Is this some sort of joke?"

There was finality in the way Tatsuya stepped forwards. For the past week he had crawled and stumbled and ran. He hadn't known his purpose then, and he certainly didn't know it now. Tatsuya's gaze flickered over to the demons, now pounding away at Kyouko's shield.

"This will sound strange," Tatsuya said, "but you three were heroes to me, long before you ever met me. Or the demons attacked. It's strange to see you all look so broken."

Mami looked oddly peaceful. "The camp couldn't survive without resources any longer. We had to make a move, so we attacked Götterdämmerung. And we failed."

"'Broken,' are we?" Kyouko asked. "I'm guess I'm just tired."

"We've done our part and fought. And ultimately, what hope was there for us? This is how our story ends—filled with failure and regret," Mami said. "We couldn't protect this city. But if we die, we'll do so together."

Tatsuya knelt down by Homura. The darkness in her soul gem was quickly overtaking whatever light remained. Homura stared at Tatsuya with wide eyes. Slowly, she struggled to raise an arm up to Tatsuya's face.

"Well," Tatsuya said, "if the mightiest heroes are only ordinary humans, scared and alone, isn't the reverse true? You're right. I'm just a boy. But an ordinary human can rise up from the darkness of a normal life into the glory of heroism, right?"

"I'd like to see you do that," Kyouko said. There was an awful snapping sound as the first layer of Kyouko's shield wall gave in.

"There were people who came before us," Tatsuya said. "Isn't that right, Sakura-san? People dear to us fought and died so that we might have the hope, no matter how faint, of a brighter tomorrow. They continue to live at our backs, pressing us forwards. I think it would be the ultimate disservice to them if we were to just give up."

Kyouko stared at the demons advancing upon them and did not answer.

Tatsuya grasped Homura's hand. "I was raised hearing about heroes," he said. "The magical girls of Mitakihara. Tomoe Mami. Sakura Kyouko. Miki Sayaka. Akemi Homura. I could never truly understand them, though. They were part of the magical world, and I was a member of the normal world. And even beyond that, it was frightening to think about how children just as young as me had to give up their lives to defend the world. And sometimes, they just died in vain. Nobody would remember them.

"But now, you know, I think I understand. I didn't come out here to live or to die. I did it to see you three with my own eyes, even if it was only for one last time. Because I've been told that I have a destiny, but for the world I can't tell you what that destiny is. But even if I don't know what it is, I think I can still choose it."

Homura's voice was the weak whisper of the dying. "Tatsuya," she said. "Please—"

She raised a hand and turned Tatsuya's face towards her.

"I'm not glad you came," she said. "You could have lived on."

Tatsuya nodded. "I'm sorry."

"I can see her in your face," Homura said. "Again and again, whenever she contracted, she would apologize. I swore to myself that I would never again see the face she made when she apologized."

Homura's eyes devoured Tatsuya's face, taking in every detail, burning it into a mind that was preparing itself to die.

Tatsuya pulled his hand away from Homura and straightened his back. "I told you, didn't I? I didn't come here to die."

It was such a small motion, Tatsuya thought, and one that he had done repeatedly in a mixture of boredom and desperation so many times before. The ring was no different, but it seemed to slide into place on his finger like the pieces of a watch fitting together.

For a moment, it seemed to Tatsuya like nothing had changed. Then, his mind derailed like a jump cut in a film, and he was suddenly in a different world.

The chamber was coated in candy. The want for sweets was the most childish, primal want, and it had exploded onto the walls like it exploded inside a little girl's head. There was a black snake, long and twisted like an intestine, with a large, gaping mouth lined with knives.

Tatsuya knew that it was a witch. It was another stage in the life cycle of a magical girl. Really, any human being had witches inside them, just as surely as they felt despair. The blackness flowing in their veins and slowly infecting their hearts was the witch. Magical girls only had the misfortune to have their witches writ large across their souls.

He saw the witch devouring the mangled body of one girl while an Incubator sat on its haunches and flicked its tail.

He saw the sludge of despair pool inside one girl's soul gem while her mind became an echo chamber of doubt and self-hate and envy.

He saw one girl accept the futility of life and resolve on the best course of action—to die gloriously, to save another, instead of live on in desperation.

And by the darkness that Tatsuya saw infesting the lives of not only the _mahou shoujo,_ but also those of the ordinary human beings, he knew that despair wasn't an enemy that could be fought, but instead an infection that could only be inoculated against. It took root deep inside the spirit of mankind, twisting itself through the sinew and flesh of society.

He saw one girl finally gaze upon the rivers of blood she had spilled for a fight with no end and no purpose. _That_ was despair—to know that all possible gains or victories were illusions, and that the only substance to be found in life was the specter of death. He saw the girl lie down and surrender.

_Tatsuya, listen to me._

He saw that despair could not take one girl, who stood defiant against the Incubator.

_You have had destiny ever since your birth, by your own choice. Because you could see me. Because you knew that I was watching over you. You have power, Tatsuya, because out of the billions of people on this planet, you know best, even if you try to deny it, that hope is there. And you know that I am watching over the heroes that defend hope._

Tatsuya heard the voice of the Incubator, shocked at what one girl, one temporarily organized assortment of organic chemicals perched on one ruined corner of one small planet, had the audacity to wish for.

_Do you really want to become a God?_

He heard the words that the girl spoke and watched as she smashed the system that the Incubators had created. His sister struck with the power of a thousand suns, destroying and renewing, extending her protective grasp over the new universe that she created.

 _So this is how the story ends,_ he thought, and watched as the witches were saved and his sister ascended into divinity. And while despair kept its firm grip on the throat of humanity, Tatsuya knew that his sister did not allow it to win over the hearts of the _mahou shoujo._

 _So, Tatsuya,_ Madoka said, _do you understand now?_

_I do._

_I'm sorry that I've placed this burden on you._

_Don't be. People in our family are good at shouldering burdens,_ Tatsuya said.

Mami and Kyouko stared as Tatsuya began to glow. Above him, light burst through the clouds that had blanketed the city, a revelation of the free sky, cleansed of darkness, that lay behind it.

Madoka's voice grew in intensity inside Tatsuya's mind. _If you understand your destiny, and you choose to accept it, then you must cast aside what has held you back up until now. The blood of the Goddess runs inside you, marking you for greatness._

_Tatsuya,_

Fire burned inside Tatsuya's mind, searing Madoka's words inside the folds of his brain for the rest of eternity.

**RISE UP.**

The demons recoiled as the human before them began to emanate an awful light, cutting through the miasma that sustained them. As he walked forwards, he seemed to be gliding through the air, and his eyes shined with a golden color that pierced through the blackness.

With a final smash, the demons broke through Kyouko's shield wall, only to find themselves unwilling to go any closer to Tatsuya.

Tatsuya knelt beside Homura and passed a hand over her soul gem. "Sadly, this sort of thing only happens once," he said. "But that's how miracles work, isn't it?"

Kyouko looked at Homura's purified soul gem and managed to form only one word around her astonishment—"How?"

"In this world, hope and miracles exist," Tatsuya said, and his voice rang with truth more solid than the Earth itself.

Homura's wings extended outwards, and instead of the white wings she had once had, these were jagged and filled with blackness. There were stars dotted across the wings, and they flickered like a fading dream. Tatsuya thought of his sister, straddled across the cosmos while she protected Earth, and he looked back at Homura's wings. They weren't harsh or frightening. They were surreal, but even though they seemed like something that didn't belong in this world, Tatsuya felt a connection to them.

He knew who lived inside those wings.

Homura stood beside him, not in astonishment over her resurrection, not surprised by the black wings that now sprouted from her back, but instead, with a determined, resolute look chiseled into her face. She took one glance at Tatsuya and nodded.

"The demons are doomed to failure," Tatsuya said, "because there is a Goddess above, watching over the _mahou shoujo,_ and, by proxy, all of humanity. When we fight, it is with her strength that we strike. When we live, it is by her benevolence."

Tatsuya's voice grew louder. "And humanity _will not_ fall," he said, "because the will of the Goddess above is hope _,_ and by her hand will humanity be delivered from despair."

Homura leaped forwards, startling the demons out of their paralysis. They fired upon her as one, and in one sweep of her wings she swept aside lasers and claws, before bringing another wing down and obliterating the entire mass of demons.

Götterdämmerung, judgment reaching down from the skies, towered above Homura. As she raced upwards towards it, its surface began to bubble. First a second arm emerged, then a torso, until a giant reached out of the tower, stringy bits of flesh connecting it to Götterdämmerung.

Homura's wings extended, until tip to tip they blanketed the sky, painting a picture of a starry night of color and light across the firmament's canvas.

Götterdämmerung shot one laser. Kyouko stepped in front of Tatsuya in time to shield his fragile human body from the shockwave.

The blast washed over Homura, but she continued to ascend towards Götterdämmerung. As the demon poured energy into the blast, the stars in Homura's wings seemed to glow brighter, and the light of her soul gem was visible even from the ground.

Homura floated above Götterdämmerung for a moment. Time flowed around the girl and the demon in that one tiny fraction of eternity as they stared at each other, two pillars of light piercing the sky.

Then, Homura drew her bow back in one smooth, deliberate motion. An instant later, purple light split the sky, like a shooting star streaking across the heavens.

Götterdämmerung collapsed, huge pieces of flesh burning as they fell, before dissolving entirely into miasma. A bit of the demon's face crashed down not far from Tatsuya. He watched as its features melted away.

Awe and fear glistened in the sweat on Mami and Kyouko's faces as Homura landed on the ground besides them. There was uncomfortable silence.

Finally, Mami spoke, a halting hesitancy in her voice. "Homura?"

"I'm still the same person," Homura said. "I have had a lot of practice being Akemi Homura."

Homura smiled, and Tatsuya was struck by how radiant that icy face was when sunlight struck it.

"I am still your friend."

Kyouko looked away in embarrassment and chuckled. The fear melted away from Mami's face, but it was replaced with concern. "What… _was_ that?" she asked.

"Tatsuya saved me."

Mami turned towards Tatsuya. "What you said about the Goddess is true, isn't it?"

"Yes," Tatsuya said. The light had died around him, but his eyes still glowed gold.

"How do you know?" Mami asked, without any hint of skepticism in her voice.

"It's my destiny," Tatsuya said, "to place the Goddess in the heart of humanity, and to give the people hope. And just like any other prophet, I know this because the Goddess told me."

Kyouko stared at Tatsuya. "If there really is a Goddess, like you say, then why has she let hundreds of millions people die? Why'd she have to wait?"

"She's not omnipotent," Tatsuya said, "although, you have to consider what a world without her would be like. But that's beside the point. The Goddess cannot snap her fingers and make everything a paradise. It is up to us to save the world."

Kyouko turned to Homura.

"What he says is true," Homura said.

"I believe him," Mami said, stepping forwards. "How could I not, after seeing that? Not many people are lucky enough to say that they live for a reason. We were saved by a miracle right now. I'm willing to believe. If it means that there's hope for this world, I'll believe with all of my being."

Kyouko shook her head. "It's hard to accept that there's a Goddess, even after seeing that," she said. "I know you're special, kid. But what does it _mean_ for there to be a Goddess? What's she going to do for me? What am I supposed to do for her? People have been giving answers to those questions for millennia, and I'm pretty sure they were all lying. I don't know any of that shit."

"I could teach you," Tatsuya said. He waited a second before saying, "And you might give me a chance before calling me a liar."

Kyouko grinned. "All right, then. I'll follow you. But I have to admit, I don't understand most of what you're saying. The stuff about knowing us was completely incomprehensible. And first I gotta know your name. Tatsuya, was it?"

"Yes," Tatsuya said. "Kaname Tatsuya."

The smile gradually slipped off Kyouko's face. "Kaname Tatsuya," she repeated, her brow scrunched in concentration. "That name sounds familiar."

Tatsuya nodded slowly. "I'm sure it is."

-x-

Kaname Tomohisa wept when he was reunited with his son. Tatsuya looked at his father and saw the lines carved into his face and the sickly pallor to his skin. In the weeks since Tatsuya had seen him, death had stolen years.

"Don't worry, Dad. From now on, everything's going to be all right," he said, before starting to cry with him.

The people of Mitakihara spoke of him around campfires in hushed tones. They said that when he spoke, he took words from heaven above and placed them on his lips. They called him the boy who was followed by light. And, one day, Tatsuya found an ornate pendant of a rose, carved out of wood, lying misplaced on a table. The owner had flushed in reverence when Tatsuya returned it and complimented her on her craftsmanship. They exchanged pleasantries before Tatsuya realized that he really was creating a new religion.

With Götterdämmerung toppled, and the miasma mostly dispelled from Mitakihara, the _mahou shoujo_ had the task of relocating the inhabitants of the refugee camps back into the city. They worked quickly, not only moving people but also using magic to quickly rebuilt infrastructure, guided by what few engineers and JSDF soldiers remained. Bunkers and barricades began popping up soon afterwards. Mitakihara was being transformed into a city of forts and the Goddess.

News of the miracle at Mitakihara had spread quickly throughout the Japanese islands, and then to the world beyond. In the few communications that Homura received from international magical girls, most of them had some form of the question: is there _really_ a Goddess?

Homura would always allow Tatsuya to respond, and each time, Tatsuya would answer, "Of course."

Tatsuya found his new life to be surprisingly busy. He spent one month, speaking and praying to rally morale, before he found one moment of respite.

In all likelihood, nobody would miss him for one afternoon, but Tatsuya still arranged to cover his absence. Kyouko and Mami would explain to anybody who asked that Kaname Tatsuya had business outside the city, and would unfortunately not be able to meet with anybody.

After lunch, Tatsuya walked out of the austere apartment complex he now called home. Two magical girls flanked him on either side. Out of all the city's inhabitants, the _mahou shoujo_ had been the fastest to flock to Tatsuya. It had been easy to find girls who were willing to play bodyguard for a day. It was still dangerous outside the city, after all, although miasma spawn rates within the city walls had dropped dramatically. The decrease in spawning had baffled the Incubators, whose data from the past month had indicated that miasma tended to spawn _near_ human populations. The migration back into Mitakihara should have moved the spawning grounds back into the city, but instead, they remained in the abandoned camps, where the people had once gathered.

Tatsuya had some idea as to why the miasma could no longer spawn, which he had told Kyubey. Kyubey had tilted its head and only said, _That hypothesis is not falsifiable._

The magical girls that were going with Tatsuya nodded their heads respectfully as he approached. They weren't as old as the leaders of the _mahou shoujo,_ like Homura. Tatsuya could easily imagine them in Mitakihara middle school. They were his peers.

A former JSDF soldier drove them in an APC salvaged from the demons to the outskirts of the cities. Tatsuya and the two magical girls sat in the back of the vehicle.

"Are you going to see someone?" one of the girls asked.

Tatsuya turned to look at her. Her vibrant purple costume looked like it could have come straight from an anime. The other girl had a similarly outstated blue costume. Their clothing contrasted with the aged looks on their faces. They spoke words of death so easily, with their faces unmoving, that Tatsuya couldn't help but imagine them much older than he knew they were.

"Yes. Are you?"

"A friend," the other girl said.

"Her name was Akiyama Yoshino," the first girl said. "She died defending the camps. This is the first time we can go out and…see her, I guess."

The girl's voice broke. "Look, if—if there really is a Goddess, then shouldn't there be a heaven? Won't we get to meet Yoshino one more time?"

Tatsuya stayed silent for some time, but not long enough to make the girls think that he was ignoring them. He was thinking.

"You know," Tatsuya said, "I know that the life of a magical girl is one filled with regrets. There's no way to prepare somebody of our age for war. And there are kind words that remain unsaid, and good that stays undone."

There were tears running down the first girl's face. She blushed in mortification when she saw Tatsuya looking at her, but Tatsuya, as best as he could, smiled back.

"The Goddess is with every magical girl as they die," he said. "She delivers their soul from the despair they suffered in life. And then, she releases them. I am not going to lie to you or deceive you. I do not want to administer comforting lies to the public, so that they follow me like blind sheep. There is probably not a heaven waiting for your friend."

Tatsuya placed a hand on the girl's shoulder as she shuddered with silent sobs. "But I haven't answered your real question. The Goddess exists outside of time and the fabric of this world. Even if the meetings you and your friend have with the Goddess are separated by time, she can still bring the two of you together. So, I believe the answer to your question is 'yes.' I'm absolutely certain, if you ask, that you can meet Yoshino one last time."

The girl blinked through her tears. "Really?"

"Of course. I said that I wouldn't lie."

"I'm glad, then."

The other girl slowly reached over and intertwined her fingers with the first one. They began to whisper, and Tatsuya turned away to leave them to their moment.

When the car stopped and Tatsuya stepped out, he began to walk ahead of his magical girl escorts. They continued to guard him from afar as Tatsuya navigated his way through the rubble.

As far as anybody could tell, this particular patch of rubble was the remains of the campsite his mother had been in when the demons attacked. None of the bodies had been identifiable, and the graves were dug hurriedly and without much care to the dead.

Tatsuya stopped and knelt at the ground. He could still feel the miasma crawling against his skin. All that was left in the blasted wreck of the camp were the remnants of evil and the hovels that the people had lived in. There was nothing here to remember his mother by.

That was fine, though. Anything left on the physical world to remind Tatsuya of his mother would be a poor substitute for her own warm, living body. His mother continued to live only in memories and dreams. Elsewhere, she was a whisper—the mother of the prophet, a poorly defined character in a story. There were very few people that could still bring the whispers back to life.

Tatsuya instinctively flinched as he felt bright light hit his eyes. When the light faded, there were two people standing in front of him.

The first was Homura, whose wings were receding back into her body, taking the light with her. It took Tatsuya a second to recognize the second person.

Madoka's hair was shorter, and her eyes didn't glow golden anymore. It took Tatsuya a moment to realize that he had always envisioned his sister as an otherworldly beauty, but now, her features seemed perfectly plain. Instead of her usual white dress, she now wore a rather frilly pink skirt.

"I'm sorry that we're late, Tatsuya," Madoka said. "Homura and I had a little conversation."

Tatsuya shook his head. "It's all right."

A mix of somberness and happiness shone through the ordinary stone mask of Homura's face. To many, this would have been disconcerting, but when Tatsuya had first seen Homura in his childhood, she had been smiling. Her hand fit snugly inside Madoka's.

"Can you visit more often?" Tatsuya asked. "I'll need your help."

A hint of regret ran through the expression that Madoka made. "Manifesting myself in this world at will takes a lot of effort," she said. "You'll know when you'll need me, and when those times come, I'll be there. That's all I can promise you."

Tatsuya made brief eye contact with Homura, and he could see the disappointment in his eyes mirrored within Homura's own.

Madoka reached forwards and gave Tatsuya a hug. "You shouldn't worry about where I'll be in the future. I'm here now."

Laughing softly, Madoka ran a hand though Tatsuya's hair. "And you've grown so much now," she said. "I never really had the chance to tell you that."

Tatsuya smiled. "Madoka, can I ask you something?"

"Yes?"

"What was our family like when you were with us?"

Madoka pulled away from Tatsuya. If he stared long enough into those eyes, Tatsuya felt like he was wading through time that ran so thick it barely allowed movement. She seemed human—she _was_ human—but for one moment, Tatsuya couldn't help but remember that he was looking at a god whose human life had happened worlds and eternities away.

"When I was a teenage girl," Madoka said, "mom was a figure of…someone that I wanted to be, but knew that I never could become. She was strong, and independent, and successful at work, and cool. She always said…"

Madoka glanced downwards, and her face darkened. "…that she wanted me to drink with her when I grew up. I failed her, you know. But mom always expected me to take care of my baby brother, who was always getting into trouble. And I thought, even if I was just a kid, if I could help raise Tatsuya, then I'd be a little useful, wouldn't I?

"I'm proud of what you've done and who you've become, Tatsuya."

Tatsuya bowed his head and said nothing.

Homura stepped forwards beside him. "For the entire week, I had been busy trying to keep the camp intact," she said. "When the attack that killed her came, I was too far away to help. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Tatsuya said. "Regret is a fool's game."

Slowly, Homura kneeled beside Tatsuya. "Some time after I first met her in this timeline, your mother found out that I didn't have any family to stay with. After that, she kept inviting me to your house, over and over again. Half the time I couldn't come because of my duties. As I grew older, life became busier, and I eventually stopped seeing her at all."

Tatsuya hesitantly placed a hand on Homura's shoulder. It was easy to realize that for her, his mother had been the closest thing to family she had ever had.

Homura's breath hitched, and Tatsuya realized that she was crying silently.

Through her tears, she said, "I need you, Tatsuya. I'm no leader. Even though I can fight, when it comes to inspiring people and making them believe, I can't do it. We need a leader to fight on."

Homura took a deep breath. "And we _have_ to fight on. All of us need something to remember the people who came before us. Your mother was such a wonderful person. I failed her once already, and I won't do it again" she said. Madoka reached down and pulled her into an embrace. Slowly, Homura's breathing returned to its normal pace.

The three of them sat there for a while, as the wind whipped dust into ghostly trails that danced along the ruins. Tatsuya thought it fitting, for a brief moment, that now, there were no tombstones or markers to remember his mother. None of them had any idea where she was, only that she wasn't there.

"I thought of a happy dream," Tatsuya said. Homura and Madoka turned to him with questioning looks.

Tatsuya's smile broke the veil of darkness that had fallen over them. He turned towards his sister. "It's a world where you stayed with us," he said, "and you two are madly in love, like things should be. And mom is alive, and she's happy for both of you. Everyone's happy. There isn't any pain, and even if there is, we have each other to lick the wounds. It sounds so silly, doesn't it? But it sounds like the way things should be.

"Mom would be so happy that her daughter found someone so wonderful to love. Well, she'd be shocked, at first, that her innocent Madoka was growing up so quickly, but she'd get over it soon. Dad would just smile. And at the wedding, mom would…"

Madoka giggled. "There's a wedding?"

They sat in the ruins and talked about the happy dream until the sunset came and sent streaks of pink streaming across the sky. Madoka glanced upwards and said, "Well, Tatsuya, what do _you_ do in the happy dream?"

Tatsuya couldn't answer for a while. "I don't know."

"Why not?"

"I've never had many friends in school," Tatsuya said. "I suppose I would have friends, but the more that I think about it, the less important it seems. Logic dictates that I would live out the life of a regular middle school student, without Incubators or magical girls. I don't know what that would be like. If you beamed me up onto an alien planet, it would be pretty much the same."

Madoka smiled. "Then, even if your place should be in the happy dream, your destiny has put you here, on this world of suffering. Both of you."

As she stood, Madoka's hair flared out into long strands of pink intertwined with the sunset. "Even if people suffer and die, they will live their lives knowing that Kaname Tatsuya and Akemi Homura are fighting for them. Because of you, they will have hope. That is far more than I could possibly ask of either of you, but you do it anyway."

Homura shrugged, and the hint of a smirk flashed across her face. "It's not terribly inconvenient. We have a deity on our side."

"That is true," Madoka said, stepping in close to Homura. Suddenly, she pointed at the sky behind Tatsuya. "Hey, Tatsuya, what's that?"

When Tatsuya turned back around, Homura was flushed and breathing hard.

"I can't stay any longer," Madoka said. "Until next time?"

"Of course," Tatsuya said. Madoka leaned in to whisper something in Homura's ear, before light swirled around her body, and she disappeared.

Tatsuya turned to Homura. "The magical girls will want me to head back now," he said. "We should get going."

Homura nodded and started walking forwards. Something made Tatsuya hesitate for a moment, and he paused to look behind him. In the spot where they had been sitting, a rose plant had inexplicably grown out of the rubble.

"It's strange to think that people look up to us now," Homura said, after Tatsuya had caught up. "I haven't grown used to it over the years. There are so many people who deserve recognition, but instead remain invisible."

Tatsuya shrugged. "I seem to have inadvertently started a religion around Madoka. That counts as remembrance enough, in my opinion."

"That is true," Homura said. "But Madoka's too humble to want worship, or even necessarily recognition. So what are the people making signs and learning prayers for?"

"To remember her," Tatsuya said. He thought about the girl with the rose pendant. "Not for her sake, but for their own. To remind themselves that there is somebody who walks with them and guides them. And for us, so that we remember that there were people who came before. Mom and Madoka won't die so long as we continue to believe that there can be heroes, and we can still struggle for something worth fighting for."

Heads held high, Homura and Tatsuya walked into the impending night.

-x-

_The Prophet, his religion, and the armies that rallied under his banner were new and untested. They faced the enemy, in its million forms. They knew that the enemy's aim was the destruction of humanity._

_But the enemy knew not that the Goddess above was at the Prophet and the Servant's side._

_And though their limbs ached with the toil of battle and their hearts shook with the losses of war,_

_By the license of the Goddess did the armies in her name grow in strength,_

_And with the fury of the oncoming tide did her flag advance._

-x-

END INTERMISSION PART 2

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a fun fact: the "Tatsu" of the given name "Tatsuya" is usually written with the kanji for either "dragon" or "master."
> 
> However, "Tatsu" can also be written as "立." Its use in the name "tatsuya" is apparently quite rare, as a cursory examination of the Wikipedia page on the name "Tatsuya" reveals that, out of a long list of notable people with the name, only Ishihara Tatsuya has his given name written as "立也." When "Tatsu" is written like this, its meaning is "to stand."
> 
> Or, in less frequent contexts, "to rise."


	8. None Can Excel

"The Inquisition works tirelessly to determine the true extent of the rebels' guilt, so that we may discriminate the faithful from the heretic. When we find the heretic, we will know what crimes she has been complicit—no, accomplice—to.

"The heretic's hands soak in every drop of blood staining the ground of Genesis, Volve, Enik, and all other worlds fallen victim to the claws of the demons. Where the heretics walk, the screams of the millions dead echo in their wake.

"If they are to surrender, then we are to prop ourselves with the pillar of mercy and treat them with justice, not malice. The words they place on their lips will be proof of repentance for their iniquity.

"But if they continue to resist, and if they continue to aid the demons, then we will strike at them with all the righteous fury that the Goddess above has invested in our Holy Armada. We will employ every terrible weapon at the Hierocracy's disposal, and we will not stop until every last traitor is destroyed. If every drop of innocent blood spilled by the demons must be paid by another drop of heretic blood spilled by the sword of divine wrath, then so let it be done.

"I hereby declare, in my capacity as Prophet-Queen of this Holy and Righteous Hierocracy of Humanity, commander of the armies and _mahou shoujo_ in the Goddess' name, and vessel for the truth of the heavens above, that a Holy Crusade be waged against the following bodies: the Lyudian Liberation Front, the Domersek-Nazra, the government of South Unesol…"

"…and any individuals found to be collaborating with aforementioned organizations. May the Goddess above aid her loyal soldiers in their impending trials."

-x-

"Lord Admiral Leopold, I don't want to patronize you, but you do remember the last time our Hierocracy declared a Holy Crusade against heretics, correct?"

Charlotte Leopold pressed her lips into a thin line stretching across her rosy face. The Lord Admiral's perpetually warm complexion was supposed to strike people as motherly, but Maria registered no such connection.

"I am well aware, Inquisitor General. But precedent does not take precedence over circumstance."

"Well, then let's compare scenarios, "Maria said. "In the Age of the Fourth Servant, the Crusade against the Lyudians was limited to the planets, not the stars. The Prophet-Queen then granted the Inquisition an explicit blank check to prosecute and execute at will. We face the _exact same scenario_ today, except I can assure you, even if Diana Markos were as skilled a diplomat as Victoria Godot, she would still not be able to broker a peaceful solution to this conflict."

"And when we compare scenarios, let's not forget that the Prophet-Queen's blank check then only served to fan the flames of rebellion in the Lyudian sectors."

Maria leaned forwards. "How much farther _can_ we fan the flames of these rebels? The Lyudians have been proven to be _colluding with demons._ This sort of heresy was _unimaginable_ but one decade ago."

"So what?" Charlotte asked, serene expression finally cracking. "A Holy Crusade means that we draw upon all of the Hierocracy's resources to fight the enemy. It heralds a _joint-forces_ operation."

"The Prophet-Queen has allowed the deployment of Armada troops in this sector to be up to your discretion, Lord Admiral Leopold," Maria said. "And it would be the height if irony if your Admirals scrambled to assign themselves command over the battlefield of rebel planets only _after_ the Holy Crusade was declared, when the Inquisition has been toiling and dying on those same planets for decades."

Maria was somewhat glad that only a hologram represented Leopold, because she reasoned that if she were to be in personal contact with the Lord Admiral, the atmosphere would be somewhat uncomfortable.

Maria sighed. "Let me put it another way. Do you really want to divert your girls to my fight? Or would you rather let them continue to fight the demons? We have already declared one ceremonial Holy Crusade against those. The one against the rebels is the one with actual political weight."

Comforting people took practice. It took hours in front of a mirror, perfecting her smile and practicing her speech. It took years of experience working as an Inquisitor General, listening to the suffering that the average Inquisitional girl went through on a day-to-day basis, and then reassuring them that everything would be better.

And then, she had made everything better.

"My proposition to you," Maria said, "is to let _me_ deal with the politics, while _you_ and your Armada can concern itself with mitigating the existential threat. Does this sound reasonable?"

"Enough."

Instantly, both Maria and Charlotte turned to look at the third person in the conversation. Lord Admiral Virginia Sherman of Hope had a very unassuming profile. She was slumped in her chair; her uniform was slightly wrinkled; there were bags under her eyes. In her right hand, she swirled a tumbler of some unidentifiable liquid.

"Lord Admiral Leopold," Virginia said, "think pragmatically. Is this necessary?"

"Not necessary," Charlotte said. "We don't need to give her an explicit blank check."

"Inquisitor General D'Arco. What is necessary?"

"The rebels are clearly aiding the demons. The extent and significance of this alliance is as of yet unknown, and demon cells on rebel planets remain uncontested. This needs to end. And we cannot remain hamstringed by investigation procedures."

Virginia turned to Charlotte. "The solution is simple," she said. "We will close our eyes and turn the other way. We won't throw our support behind whatever General D'Arco does, but we won't prevent it, either."

Lord Admiral Leopold stiffened. "Yes, Lord Admiral Sherman."

"By the way, Lord Admiral Leopold, get to the battlefield quickly. Prophet he may be, I want one of my Lord Admirals on the front line before Kaname Yoshio. You are both dismissed."

The two holograms of the Lord Admirals disappeared. Maria immediately let out a slow breath.

Maria's door hissed open. "How did it go?" Julia asked.

Maria wasn't smiling anymore. Some years ago, she had realized that smiling around Julia was redundant. "Well enough," she said. "I have earned a victory of sorts."

-x-

Diana rested her fingers against the door to Yoshio's office. A stream of constant skirmishes with the demons had prevented her from speaking to Yoshio since his induction into the Armada. Almost two weeks had passed since the mission at Feraxis, and while she could talk to Christine and May regularly on the _Faithful Soldier,_ she hadn't had any face-to-face conversations with Yoshio in some time.

Yoshio's door slid open softly. In the short span of time since arriving aboard, Yoshio hadn't been able to redecorate the naturally sparse captain's quarters. Even then, Diana didn't think that Yoshio had much to move in anyway. In the Goddess' Seat, Yoshio surely had some floor dedicated to him alone, filled with the luxuries of a galaxy-spanning empire, but he hadn't brought any of them to the battlefield.

Yoshio himself was resting his head in his hands, sipping tea, and making a vacant expression that vacillated between bored and inattentive. He looked up when Diana entered the room.

"How may I serve, Rear Admiral Prophet Kaname?"

"Diana—"

"Or is it Prophet-Prince Admiral Kaname?"

" _Diana—_ "

"You just have so many _titles—_ "

"It's _Rear Admiral Kaname,"_ Yoshio said. "No 'Prophet'. Crossing Hierocratic and military positions is always a bad idea."

Diana tilted her head. "You're not wearing your ring anymore, are you?"

"I am not."

"But you're still a Prophet," Diana said, stepping forwards. "There's no escaping who you are by birth, just like there's no escaping who _I_ am by fate. You're not trying to run away, are you?"

Diana yawned and sat down across Yoshio. "Courage _is_ one of the five pillars."

"I'm not running away," Yoshio said. "This is where I belong."

"Suit yourself," Diana said. "Anyway, what did you call me onto the _Maelstrom_ for? I can't complain, though. We all regret that we're still stuck on the dinky little raid destroyers while you get the fucking dreadnought. I could get used to staying on this thing."

"You're needed in direct combat," Yoshio said, "so that's out of the question."

Diana crossed her arms and glanced downwards. "Yeah. Of course."

A tiny, flickering sense of pride and dignity prevented Diana from complaining. The burden of tradition lay upon all magical girls, upon her only slightly more than others. The first magical girls to have publically served the Goddess and the Hierocracy of the Prophet had all, without exception, _fought_. From the Hearth, who rebuilt cities out of ash, to the fledgling squads that led the offensive into demon-controlled territory, every magical girl had been some form of military or another. There was no place for a magical girl behind a desk, and certainly none for them in theopolitics.

There were two classical routes for advancement: leadership from the front, as a high-ranking Armada officer, or combat in the field, as a foot soldier. Both were honorable and respected choices. The Inquisition and the Hearth were stranger options, and Diana had seen May and Akira field questions about their respective organizations far more often than Christine did.

"So," Diana said, "what did you call me here for?"

Yoshio pressed a button on his desk, and a holographic projection of a planet sprung up. "This," he said, "is Rackba. How much do you know about it?"

Diana blinked. "Rackba's one of the older Lyudian colonies," she said. "And home of the Domersek-Nazra. We have it pretty pacified though, don't we?"

"We do," Yoshio said. "Now that we have secured Feraxis as a base for Armada operations, _we_ have very little business with the heretics. That's D'Arco's job. I…"

Yoshio shifted uncomfortably. "Well, there are reasons as to why I'm not going to interfere in Inquisitional affairs in this region. I have no reason to suspect D'Arco. I'm sure Christine would disapprove of my actions, but she's not here to complain."

"She would if she could," Diana said. "I suppose you don't want to piss off D'Arco? That sounds strange, though. Someone of your position should be able to pull that shit off, right?"

"It's complicated."

Diana threw her hands up in the air. "Okay, okay. Have at your shady shit; I don't care."

Yoshio shook his head. "It's certainly troubling," he said. "I'll look into it later. But that's beside the point. D'Arco tells me that heretic attacks, primarily led by organizations affiliated with Domersek-Nazra, have flared up since the heretics and the demons revealed their hand."

The holographic projection of Rackba zoomed into the urban centers of the planet. Areas of fighting were highlighted in red. "The Inquisition reports that fighting has grown the most intense over the past twenty-four hours. And, at the same time, demon fleets began appearing at the fringes of the system."

Diana snorted. "Surely a coincidence."

"Which is why I've received a request from the Inquisition to cover them," Yoshio said. "If the Inquisition withdrew, it's likely that the demons would withdraw their forces also, and we'd battle elsewhere, on perhaps more favorable terms. But I am willing to gamble that whatever D'Arco finds on this planet will make up for the risks I am taking for her."

"How generous of you."

Yoshio's lips twitched. "It really is. Anyway, the simulation AIs agree with me that we will have our main force around the system within the next thirty-six hours, which is not enough time for the demons to mount a serious offensive on the system."

"Got it," Diana said. "So, this is the part where you tell me what you want me to do, right?"

Yoshio's shoulders sagged as his gaze flickered to the ground. "It feels strange giving you orders."

"Aw, don't worry. You can always just ask politely."

"A group of Domersek leaders have expressed their desire to open communications with the commanding Armada officer of the system. As it turns out, matters took an unexpected turn when that officer turned out to be the former Prophet-Prince, brother of the Prophet-Queen."

"So if the talks go through, they'll have an extra layer of legitimacy?"

"Yes," Yoshio said. "There is a transport bringing these leaders to the _Maelstrom._ If we get through to them, they'll be critical to shift power away from the Domersek-Nazra. As a radical splinter sect, Domersek-Nazra already faces hostility from the main churches anyway. We only need the mainstream Domersek clergy to publically support the Crusade and condemn their fundamentalist counterparts."

"But you don't know what might happen to the transports on the way up," Diana said. "Something like that just screams assassination. So, of course—"

"You will provide the best protection. No matter _what_ happens, I cannot imagine that you won't be able to take care of it."

Diana shrugged. "I guess I've been getting used to combat."

"I know. Christine told me."

Diana raised an eyebrow. "Did she?"

"According to her, the routine parts of magical girl combat have now been mostly ingrained in your head," Yoshio said. "She also said that it seemed like you had adopted a healthy attitude towards combat as well. The last couple raid skirmishes went perfectly, didn't they? No casualties."

Slowly, Diana slipped her hands into the pockets of her uniform. "I guess."

The sound of Yoshio sipping his tea filled the air. A moment passed after Yoshio put the teacup down. Diana still hadn't said anything, and Yoshio was only staring at her.

"I used to be terrified in the middle of battle," Diana said. "Sweaty and jittery. And now here I am, three weeks after we left Earth, and I'm definitely calmer in battle now. The fear just creeps up on me in other places."

Diana giggled. "I thought about what it'd be like to be back at home. There's a cliff overlooking the ocean right by my house. I'd sit there, draw the waves, and be free from people, obligations, and worries. A couple days ago, I thought how much I'd rather be _there_ than _here._ "

Yoshio still stirred his tea. Diana could read nothing from his face.

"So I guess my point is that I definitely don't have the fucking attitude down."

"It's all right to be afraid," Yoshio said. "I have a different faith in you than the people do. They have faith in you on the basis of your reputation. I have faith in you because I know you, and I know that, despite what you may say, you are much stronger than you give yourself credit for. On that destroyer above Genesis, I saw a frightened girl rise up. That's part of what inspired me to take this position."

"I don't _feel_ strong."

Yoshio shrugged. "Strength isn't something you feel. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's a way you act."

Yoshio's cup clattered as he set it down. "I haven't really been tested in battle yet," he said. "Everything has just been skirmishes. The AIs could handle them just as well as I did. But, I guess it was a good experience to work with my officers. You should meet them, sometime."

"We don't run into each other very much," Diana said, running a hand along Yoshio's desk. As she had walked to Yoshio's office, the hallways had been unfamiliar. The respect she had received from the personnel had been the same, though.

"All military personnel have their breaks," Yoshio said. "I'm sure we'll have a chance to speak later."

Yoshio slipped a hand into his pocket and withdrew his ring. His thumb danced a circle around it. "It _does_ get lonely at times, though. I could use more visits."

"The next time Christine comes, she might bring May with her," Diana said. "You two haven't spoken that much, so that would be good. Goddess knows you need to practice speaking to normal people in a normal way."

"Your comments are as appreciated as always, Diana," Yoshio said, sighing. "Well, until next time?"

The last time they had said goodbye like this, Diana hadn't been sure whether or not she would be seeing him again. But now, war, though still terrifying, was becoming less and less alien by the day.

"Take it easy," Diana said, turning around and waving a hand in parting.

-x-

Diana wrapped her arms around herself, shivering a little in the cold night air. The cloth draped over her shoulder didn't do much to provide warmth. An image of girl she had seen conjuring fire during battle came to the forefront of her mind.

Whenever Diana transformed, wings sprouting from her back, magic flowed through her. The sensation couldn't be explained by any words describing purely physical senses—magic took root deeper than the flesh.

Diana closed her eyes and concentrated. She could feel the magic in her. All she needed to do was make the flame.

Her fingers sparked, and flame shot out, before the fire suddenly sputtered and died with a hiss of smoke.

Diana blinked in surprise. The magic was still flowing inside her. It didn't seem like she hadn't been concentrating on making the flame, but that something inside her just wasn't compatible with the fire.

For her, the flames were just a trick anyway, and Diana knew that there were probably other more practical solutions. As Diana slowly inhaled and exhaled, warmth diffused itself through her body, and she stopped shivering.

Diana's communicator beeped, drawing Diana's attention to the runway below her. She was perched on top of a hill overlooking a small Hierocracy base nestled in Rackba's central metropolis. This planet was certainly more developed than Feraxis was. But, despite the bustling streets lined with vendors and the crowded, uniform apartments that marked human civilization, there were no churches to Hashal. There were quite a few Hierocratic cathedrals, but to a Domerseka, building monuments to Hashal was only arrogance in the face of the monument's inevitable destruction, an antithesis to the very nature of the deity himself.

They did build statues to Victoria Godot, though.

There were definite Lyudian influences in Victoria's costume. Two pendants hung from her neck—one to the Goddess, and another to Hashal. She had been distrusted and feared by both sides of a seemingly inevitable conflict. As Himmelsschloss stripped away whatever civil liberties the Lyudians had had, the Domersek clergy began calling for an uprising.

It had been expected that Victoria would win the war for the Hierocracy. Nobody had expected a peace settlement.

In the distance, Diana could see her figure sticking out of the skyline. Two jets of flame spurted from her back, casting shadows across the city. On Critek, they had a temple in her name—all because of her wish to give fire to the freezing planet.

What was Diana compared to that? Victoria Godot had saved her people twice over, once from the cold, and once from war.

_I want to be free from fear._

Wasn't that just the sort of wish a scared little girl would make?

Diana scanned the runway's surroundings, looking for any places assassins might hide. Even if they were out of sight, Diana was reasonably certain that she would be able to intercept any attacks. Plasma bolts were slower than the hand of the Goddess above.

The vessel took off without incident, and, after waiting for a second, Diana followed, extending her wings and taking to the air. The lights of the city glowed warm and bright in a mat of campfires and torches below her. This colony still kept those strange remnants of old colonial days.

Diana realized that she felt uneasy about a minute before the vessel would clear the planet's atmosphere and make it to space. In an instant, she summoned her bow, partly to defend from attack, and partly to have something to wrap her sweaty fingers around. The feeling that she was being hunted pressed down on her.

"I hate this," Diana whispered.

In one moment, Rackba was calm.

Diana looked up to see a writhing mass of flesh, as large as a skyscraper, burst through the clouds and head straight towards the planet.

The Servant and the demon battleship reacted at the same time. Diana was between the convoy and the ship just as the demon fired its laser. Fire and light washed over Diana in a wave of searing pain before she extended her wings to deflect the blast.

She reached out blindly in a wide telepathic message: _Hey, pilot, if you're listening, this would be the fucking time to get into orbit!_

The transport's engines roared as it raced to space, disappearing from sight. The demon ship had let it go. There was better prey.

Diana waited until her breathing was under control before telepathically contacting the _Maelstrom. Yoshio, what the hell is going on? I thought you guys had orbit controlled! Why am I seeing demon ships in Rackba's atmosphere?_

 _We have control!_ Yoshio said. _I don't know what's happening! The_ Maelstrom _is getting strange readings from all over the planet._

The demon battleship fired another laser, this one racing straight at Diana. This time, she was more prepared, magically reinforcing her body to disperse most of the blast.

Diana drew and notched an arrow. She felt the bow creak as tension ran through the wood. She breathed out slowly as she took aim. The demon battleship hung over the sky like the clouds of a storm.

Her arrow struck against the side of the battleship with kinetic energy equivalent to that of a planetary bombardment charge. Fire blossomed from the side of the battleship, lighting the grey sky with color. Debris rained down onto the ground below. Diana allowed herself to whistle softly in satisfaction.

Three more battleships emerged from behind the first one, and Diana caught herself forgetting to breathe. Out of the possible complications she had considered, no matter how outlandish, none of them included this.

Telepathic noise from the ground caught Diana's attention. Inquisitional agents, now surrounded by demon swarms, desperately called for help—aerial support, reinforcements, _anything._

But, as Diana looked across the sky, demons and miasma stretched from horizon to horizon, blanketing the planet. Ordinarily, a planet could only be taken from orbit. Now, the demons had taken hold from the surface, spreading so quickly that nobody could have reacted.

And Diana _knew_ that the heretics had to be involved. The heretic on Feraxis had confirmed that they had been helping the demons escape containment. This had to be the result of a coordinated effort.

_Yoshio, are you seeing this?_

_I am. This has happened once before: Earth, at the onset of the First War._

_There are some demons in between me and orbit. You probably don't want me trapped down here, do you?_

_No. Get back to the Maelstrom now._

Then, something else burst through the clouds. Diana could see that these weren't demon battleships. Instead, these were ships of metal, bearing the sign of the Goddess. Distress signal after distress signal pierced Diana's head.

_Yoshio, what's going on?_

Demons began swirling around the Armada ships, trailing them as they fell to the ground. Once they crashed, Diana knew that the demons would devour everyone inside.

 _Demon battleships manifested behind us,_ he said. _They took out several of our ships by surprise. Our destroyer force has been decimated._

_Were any of my friends aboard?_

Yoshio was silent.

_Answer me._

Yoshio's voice was cold and sharp, nothing that Diana would have expected him to be capable of when she had first met him. _My orders were to return to the Maelstrom. Servant you may be, you are a member of the Armada, bound by your contract to loyalty to the Goddess. That means that you are loyal to_ me.

Diana notched an arrow and aimed at the ships blocking her escape. The first shot had already taken a toll on her soul gem—she could feel exhaustion creeping into her limbs, and the connection to her magic was beginning to fray. Generating the energy to destroy three battleships would drain her for at least a couple hours. By then, it would be too late for anybody on the surface, Armada and Inquisition alike.

Slowly, Diana lowered her bow and turned around. The battleships didn't give her any trouble as they did so. The demons were sapient. They knew that what the Servant of their enemy planned on doing, and these ships had a planet to subjugate.

_Diana!_

_When we first met, you talked about how my life was precious,_ Diana said. _Why is it, then, that every single Servant until now has died in combat, fighting for the Goddess? On the frontlines, facing the enemy, protecting humanity? From Akemi Homura to Victoria Godot, each one has faced the exact same fate._

 _That's irrelevant! I need you here_ now!

 _Because you care about me, or because I'll be more useful on the_ Maelstrom?

 _You can't possibly fight all those demons, and you're of no use to anybody dead. And_ of course _I care about you._

Diana sighed. _You need to have more faith in me. I'm the Servant of the Goddess, right?_

_Aren't you scared?_

The wind whipping around Diana made her eyes sting. It was quiet here, far above the turmoil that had engulfed the world below. The calm let Diana's mind burst out of her skull and surround her. Fear was like water, and Diana could easily imagine that the grey color of the sky was a storm, and she was drowning in it.

 _Of course I'm scared,_ Diana said. _I'm terrified._

_Then why are you doing this?_

Diana tightened her grip on her bow. If she held onto it, she wouldn't drown.

_Christine's safe, isn't she?_

_How do you know?_ Yoshio asked.

 _Imagine you're in my place,_ Diana said. _And Christine's the one in a ship plummeting to the surface, about to be set upon by the demons. You have the chance to give her the possibility of survival. It's a small possibility, but if you do nothing, she's going to die._

Diana began pouring magic into her wings. She felt them expand outwards, glowing bright enough to compete with the sun.

 _What would you do?_ Diana asked.

Yoshio didn't answer.

 _If I'm not brave enough to fight for my friends, then I'm nothing. So, you shouldn't worry about me. I'm not going there to die,_ Diana said. _I'm going there to prove that I'm alive._

Diana felt a shockwave boom around her as she let her wings launch her forwards to the demons. As she neared the demons, she used her wings to shield her face and blasted through the swarm.

The demons were nearing the downed ships now. Most magical girls were resilient enough to survive the crash, and either way, all ships had landing compartments embedded deep within the ship strong enough to protect even an ordinary human. Diana would only have to hold off the demons for a short while, long enough for the magical girls to clear the wreckage.

Diana looked above her, to the sides, and even below her. Everything was a swirling, frothing mass of death. She was in the eye of the storm, a pocket of tranquility about to implode. And though she held onto her bow like it was her salvation, any anchor, no matter how strong, could be uprooted by the waves. The demons' attention was turned entirely towards her, now. The Servant had walked willingly into their midst, and her death this early in the war would be worth the escape of a million humans.

Diana scanned the mass of demons and spotted a group flying towards her. In an instant, she had notched, drawn, and released an arrow. As it flew, the tip shone bright blue before the arrow exploded in the midst of the demons, scattering them.

A shadow passing over Diana drew her attention skywards. Several dozen giants hung down from the sky, reaching for her.

Far below her, the downed ships crashed onto the surface of the planet.

 _The demons are generating telepathic interference using the miasma,_ Yoshio said, his voice distorted. _We won't be able to communicate._

_Good luck, Diana._

Yoshio's voice disappeared entirely.

The demons swept forwards simultaneously, a giant rolling wave of white that blotted out the sky. Diana drew her bow and fired over and over again, darting out of the way of demon lasers, trying to single out and eliminate the biggest threats.

When the demons finally came close enough to rake at her with their claws, she used her wings to keep them at bay. Bright fans of light swept out from her body to cut at the demons.

In the distance, something fired a laser bright enough to outshine the rest of the demons combined. Diana only managed to put her wings up an instant before the energy washed over her. Ten minutes ago, she would've been able to take the blast, but now, her soul gem was exhausted. Pain washed over Diana's body like molten lead.

The mixture of pain and weakness crackled like static in Diana's mind. No matter where she turned, all she could see was the blurry images of demons rushing towards her.

Laser after laser sliced at Diana's body, each adding another layer of wounds already crisscrossing her skin. There were deeper wounds, too, and Diana knew that an ordinary body would be dead many times over. Her body was just about to give out.

_I don't want to die._

Diana was reasonably satisfied with her body and mind. Sure, she was a bit too hostile to make many friends, and there were other people who were prettier and smarter, but still, living with herself for the rest of her life wasn't a bad thing.

There was a very fragile rope that tied her to existence, and each time the demons' lasers dug into her body, that rope frayed a little bit more

In that moment, Diana was very certain that she would die terrified. The Hierocracy always depicted its martyrs as glorious heroes, defiant until the very end. But nobody except the martyrs themselves would know what it truly felt to sacrifice their own lives, would they? At any rate, Diana was a disappointment of a Servant. She hadn't even gotten her true wings yet.

_I don't want to die!_

Diana was blinded by the light of her own soul gem as it flared to life. Heat, shockwave, and sound registered all at once as her soul gem ignited. A magical shockwave spread from her body, obliterating the demons surrounding her.

Her wings had once provided her with an anchor to the sky, but now the explosion ripped her from her perch and sent her tumbling to the ground. Diana managed to remain conscious and extend her wings long enough to slow her descent to what was hopefully a non-fatal speed before slamming into the earth.

-x-

Diana had hoped that she would wake up when her soul gem was finished healing her body. She didn't. Instead, it was the stabbing pain from her soul gem running out of magic that startled her awake.

Summoning one single arrow made Diana's body convulse in pain, but she did it anyway. At the brink of death, Diana was getting to know fear and pain better than she had ever before.

Diana slowly rolled her head around, scanning the ruined city that she had landed in. If she thought about it, it was rather disturbing that she wasn't surprised by the fear and pain. She had always known that eventually, something horrifying like this would happen. There had always been the anxiety of combat gnawing at her.

A shadow passed over Diana as a single demon loomed over her, clearly not recognizing this specific magical girl. Diana summoned the last bits of her magic to lash out with her arrow at superhuman speed. It was different and strange to not use her bow, but stabbing the demon in the neck worked just as well.

At least now, she had some baseline of competency to ease her fears.

Three grief cubes fell into Diana's hands. Then, with a hiss, two of them dissolved into nothing before Diana's eyes.

Diana stared in shock and confusion at the sole grief cube now resting in her hands. Then, she pressed the cube to her soul gem and savored every bit of pain and fear the cube siphoned out.

In the distance, Diana could see a demon swarm growing in size. She had no idea how long it had been since she had fallen, or what the situation of the planet was. She still couldn't use her telepathy to communicate. All she knew was that light was flickering with increasingly dimmer sparks in her soul gem, and if she had to die, watching as her magic flowed out of her would be one of the more unsavory ways to do so.

Diana looked around her for a moment. Everywhere, the planet was blanketed by emptiness. She was alone, and if she were to die here, she would die alone.

But what scared her more, death or failure? If she _failed_ here, she might live on, but she would forever walk in the shadow of the deaths she hadn't saved. And wouldn't that be the greater curse?

Gritting her teeth, Diana spread her wings and took off for the swarm.

When she found them, the demons were surrounding three people, pinned down in the ruined remains of a city square. As Diana punched through their line, wings sweeping them aside, she could feel the attention of the demons turn towards her at once.

Without firing a shot, the demons dispersed, flying away like dust carried by the wind. Diana looked around her in confusion before notching an arrow and tensing her legs to pursue them.

Then, she glanced downwards, and caught sight of the darkness in her soul gem. Slowly, Diana retracted her wings and lowered her bow.

"Diana!"

It took Diana a moment to respond to the voice. She had been expecting, given her luck so far, that her stay on the planet Rackba would be generally characterized by suffering and misery, so any sort of lucky break—

"Akira?"

Diana felt a trembling torso press itself against her own. She wasn't sure _when_ she had become the anchor, but if that was what Akira wanted from her, she would do it.

"We need to get to cover," Diana said. She tried to pry Akira away from her as gently as possible. "Get whatever grief cubes you can find, and then follow me."

Diana looked over Akira's shoulders to make eye contact with the two people behind her. It took Diana about half a second to realize that they were Lyudians, natives of the planet. From their faces, they were probably brother and sister.

"You coming?"

In the gaze they shared, there was fear and mistrust and hostility, but the one tiny bit of hope in the brother's eyes compelled him to walk forwards, with his sister following close behind.

As the four of them moved towards a building that was somewhat intact, Diana glanced down a side street. There had been a few bodies, branded with the scars of lasers, scattered around the square, but it had been strange to Diana that there hadn't been more. Now she knew where they were—fleeing from the square, body after body choked the roads leading away from the center of the city.

Diana slowed her pace to keep her body between the streets and May.

When they had ducked into the building, Diana had the time to examine the two Lyudians that had joined them. The brother had a scar running down his cheek, twisted and pale, with stringy blonde hair matted to his face. The sister wasn't much shorter, and Diana certainly felt more at ease looking at the brother.

Diana turned to Akira. "Have you seen any other magical girls?"

Akira shook her head. "My end of the ship got blown off in the descent," she said. "Before communications got screwed, the AIs gave us a rough estimate of where the ships were going to land, along with the last reported locations of all the Inquisitional agents in the area."

Akira took a holographic map out of her pocket and projected it onto the floor. "Here it is."

Most of the Armada magical girls, along with their Hearth support units, had landed in a hilly, undeveloped area in the outskirts of the city. Then, to the west, in an area of urban density, the Inquisition was dug in against the newly materialized swarms. Maria D'Arco's last position had been there.

Diana shook her head. "Okay. Before we start making any decisions, I need grief cubes."

They had procured only a fraction of the expected yield from the square. As Diana arranged them around her soul gem, she knew that the despair wouldn't even be completely cleansed. Still, compared to the miniscule amount of darkness that had been removed from her soul gem earlier, this was heavenly.

Diana ran the Litany of Courage through her mind again. The Goddess above had taken and saved millions of magical girls who had sacrificed their lives before her. She stood for eternal Hope, the light against the darkness. And even if it wasn't Diana's duty to stand by the Goddess, she still knew, despite all the outward cynicism, that she still believed.

"All right," Diana said. "Grief cube shortages are going to be an issue. I think it's another miasmal mutation, because the demons aren't dropping as many grief cubes as they should be."

Akira took the remaining grief cubes and began to recharge her soul gem. "There were so many demons spawning that nobody thought that shortages would be a problem."

"Right," Diana said. Only half the grief cubes were filled when Diana moved her soul gem away. "I'm saving some empty ones. You should probably too."

After pocketing the empty grief cubes, Diana stared at the filled ones for a moment. "Do Incubators…"

_Yes._

Diana turned around and faced the Incubator behind her. "I thought that telepathy was down on this planet. How can you talk to me?"

 _Not all methods have been obstructed,_ the Incubator said. _Disturbingly enough, the demons somehow knew how to block our primary means of communication. But there are other, more limited methods. I can speak to all of you given that you both are in close proximity to this physical form, but I cannot relay your messages to other magical girls not in my immediate presence._

"All right,"Diana said. "Well, which Incubator are you, Mephis or Kyubey?"

_You can't tell?_

"Kyubey?"

 _Incorrect. I am Mephis,_ the Incubator said. _Kyubey has other business occupying his attention. I was tasked with managing grief cube disposals on this planet. I have observed something quite strange._

Diana furrowed her brow. _"_ What are you talking about?"

_Do you know why grief cubes are disappearing? No, of course you don't, you can only guess. I really must stop using these human figures of speech. The answer to the question is entropy._

Akira leaned closer to Mephis. "You guys always told the Hearth that grief cubes were magical exceptions to thermodynamics."

_This was once considered true. It is now considered true only on a general basis. As the emotional energy stored inside demons undergoes a transformation into usable energy in the form of grief cubes, the amount of energy yielded is less than expected. This is not of huge consequence to us Incubators, in that miasmal energy is still spontaneously generated from nothing. But it is quite unfortunate for you magical girls._

Snarling, Diana buried her face in her hands. "Thanks for the fucking explanation."

_If you ever decide to take a more productive attitude towards the expansion of your knowledge, you will be quite welcome. Presently, it is likely that my usage of the stock human phrase 'you're welcome' would ring somewhat hollow._

"Just do your business and go, please."

Mephis scooped up the filled grief cubes with its tail and dumped them into its back. _I will be operating with maximal efficiency on this planet. So much of my business is ordinarily occupied recruiting magical girls for your army. I am presently free from those duties. This being the case, you are free to simply drop filled grief cubes after you fill them._

Each one of the four humans crowded around the Incubator regarded it with suspicion. Diana could easily see the Lyudian siblings avoiding eye contact with the Incubator, instead looking into each other's eyes for some sort of security. They were trying to dance around the magic in the room.

As Mephis stepped into a shadow cast on the room's floor, the darkness seemed to bend around him and envelop him. _You do not need to be concerned that I will not take care of the cubes in time. I always follow a step behind._

"Okay," Diana said, turning away from the spot where the Incubator vanished. "You two. I'm Diana Markos, Servant of the Goddess above. You probably already knew that. That's Tanaka Akira, member of the Hearth. What do I call you?"

After some hesitation, the brother answered, "Alexander Tolteth."

"Rebecca Tolteth."

Both of their voices were heavily accented, the words taking on a strange, silky tone as they spoke modern Japanese.

"Pleased to meet you both," Diana said. She didn't move a single inch from her position at the wall to shake hands, and, try as she might, she was reasonably certain that her attempts at injecting warmth into her voice had failed. These people were Lyudians. Being suspicious was just pragmatic, and being _scared_ was natural.

Akira flashed a tiny smile at the Lyudians. "Now that we've found you, you're in better hands than most! We have Diana with us, after all."

"That's me, Ms. Reliable," Diana muttered.

The scar across Alexander's face rippled as he worked his jaw. His entire body seemed to be comprised of thin lines, like he was a mosaic made up of the same rocks as the planet. If he was of this planet, then it made sense that he was alien. Every single rosary bead on the Domersek prayer necklace wrapped around Alexander's wrist was one light-year of distance between him and the Hierocracy.

"How do you intend on getting out alive?" he asked.

Diana glanced at May's map. "Well, the Armada's ships have been busted, so going there won't be much help. The Inquisition doesn't have orbital capabilities, but they might still have some equipment that they can use to call in help. It's a long shot—"

Movement, sharp and prickly like a needle, caught Diana's attention. "We're not moving _towards_ the Inquisition," Rebecca said.

"You got something to hide?"

Rebecca stared at Diana. There wasn't any fire in her eyes, or any dark expression on her face to indicate her anger. There was only the same stony iciness that gripped her whenever she looked at the two magical girls.

"Your Inquisition doesn't need to know that a Lyudian is hiding something before they begin investigation. The Holy Crusade your Prophet-Queen declared has only removed the pretense of restraint."

Diana's mouth was halfway open in response when May's hand gripped her forearm. At the same time, Alexander turned to glare at his sister. "That's enough."

"Either way, it's a really long shot that anybody on this planet can contact orbit," May said. "Our best bet would just to be in the right place, at the right time if evacuation somehow breaks through. Alone, neither Diana nor the Armada stands much of a chance in this blockade, but if we manage to coordinate an attack, we might be able to break through."

Diana's eyes wandered to the ceiling. How far would she have to fly before she met the Armada's forces? And what sorts of battles were Yoshio involved in up there?

It didn't really matter. She was still trapped down here.

"I can't do anything with this soul gem," Diana said, pointing at the darkness swirling inside the crystal. "I'll need to take out a lot of demons before I can be useful at taking out demon battleships."

Akira nodded. "Going to the predicted landing spots of the ships would ensure that, when Diana brings down evac, we can save the most magical girls. If we want to go there, we'll have to move through a bunch of unfamiliar city and countryside. So, we'll need guides."

"We'll help," Alexander said.

"Great," Diana said. "How do we get there?"

Alexander coughed. "Legs. Earth humans still use those, right?"

There was a tiny moment of silence and confusion, a bubble of something that was decidedly not war in the midst of a war-torn city. An irritated expression crawled onto Diana's face, which only grew more irritated as she saw Akira glance away and smile.

"You're a funny guy, Alex," Diana said. "Let's hope you don't die."

-x-

They moved slowly across the landscape. Alexander had estimated that they would make it to the general area where the ships had landed within a day, and given that none of the Armada magical girls had any means of transportation, they would probably still be there when Diana arrived.

Alexander and Rebecca spoke mostly to each other, their words veiled by low tones and a foreign tongue. A mental fishhook dug into the back of Diana's head and kept trying to pull her around to glance suspiciously at the two Lyudians. Instead, she allowed herself to walk and crawl and climb resolutely forward, content to bear their whispered words, pounding away at her back, in silence.

She had never seen a Lyudian in real life before, only in textbooks and news media. She could joke about quasi-heretic pacifists in the core sectors, but a Lyudian heretic was something strange and frightening.

Akira closed step with Diana and leaned inwards. "You seem nervous."

"I'm not afraid."

"Diana, please don't try to lie to me."

A large piece of rubble blocked the path. Leaping into the air with her wings, Diana made it to the other side and moved the rubble out of the way.

"Okay," she said, after Akira and the two Lyudians had made it across. "I don't trust them. Lyudian heretics have been aiding the demons. Something weird happened on this planet to let the demons take over from the inside out, and both of us know who's to blame."

Akira shook her head. "That doesn't mean that these two people are directly responsible."

"I know. But isn't a little fear a good thing in times like this?"

"I don't think so," Akira said. "Fear makes me regret my choices."

A rock jutted out of the ground, presenting an inviting target for Diana to kick. "You can't tell me that you're not a little scared also."

Akira shrugged. "I am," she said. "But the Hearth started out helping people rebuild their lives. And a _mahou shoujo's_ job is to serve the people. I might be scared of them, but they're _people_ first and foremost, and that outweighs the fear."

Something in the way Akira's face stood out from the gray wreckage and smoke of the burning city and the swirling pale hues of the miasma drew Diana's eyes to her. There was color, blood flowing to her cheeks, and her dark eyes glinted with determination Diana knew was nowhere in her. She was the Servant of the Goddess, but she might just as well vanish into this ruined landscape.

Diana's eyes followed Akira's hand as she tucked her hair behind her ear, before she remembered to snap her gaze back to Akira's face. "Is something wrong?" Akira asked.

"Nothing," Diana said.

They had made their way out of the city by nightfall. Whenever they came across demon groups, they forced themselves to either sneak around them or kill them before the demons knew they were there. If the things were sapient, they could also communicate, and if they could communicate, alerting the demons to their position might be disastrous.

Still, the fact that they avoided some of the demons they encountered meant that there were fewer cubes than Diana had expected at the day's end. It was sufficient, though, and she still had the ones she had saved.

As the sun set, Alexander pointed out a small structure in the distance that they could use for shelter. Ornate houses nestled in the countryside were popular amongst the more affluent Domersek clergymen, and, even if they weren't the most defensible structures, they provided shelter enough.

"Anyway," Alexander said, "what with the demons prowling the entire planet, the owner was probably killed."

After trying the door handle, which was locked, Diana bashed the door in and walked inside.

Alexander peeked through the now-ruined doorframe. "No demons here, though," he said. "I'm surprised that we haven't encountered more of them."

"Most of them would turn their attention to the Inquisition," Diana said. "Two birds with one stone—take out the primary magical girl force on the planet, and cut the ropes tying the hands of their heretic friends, I guess. A lot of demons must also be involved in keeping the planet from the Armada's hands. We're small enough that we slip under the radar."

"Lucky for us," Alexander said. His sister remained silent.

When the two Lyudians left to look for supplies, Akira turned to Diana. "You know, I could see the bodies," she said.

A jolt of surprise ran down Diana's back, settling into disappointment as it cooled. "Well, I thought I was being a bit more subtle than that."

"Diana, this was an entire city," Akira said, "We didn't meet anybody living. The dead had to go somewhere. Even if I couldn't see the corpses, I'd be smart enough to figure it out."

The softness in May's voice only drove the guilt deeper down Diana's spine. Bowing her head, she said, "I wasn't trying to patronize you."

"I know," Akira said.

Diana, after a moment, broke eye contact with Akira and examined the room. Even though the supposed upper echelons of Lyudian society used places like these as their retreats, it seemed to have about as much luxury as the average household in a core world. The architecture was different: compared to the more ornate, soaring styles of Himmelsschloss, the Lyudians used a very utilitarian aesthetic. It made sense, given their philosophy.

Propelled by curiosity and boredom, Diana drew closer to the walls and examined a digital display mounted prominently at the front of the room. It seemed to be displaying a Domersek holy text. Most holy texts had some Domersek-Nazra elements in them, so distribution and possession of the things was grounds for heresy and Inquisitional prosecution.

Diana didn't miss the irony of thumbing through the display, but it wasn't enough to make her smile.

The prose of the Domersek text was certainly less readable than the holy texts of the Hierocracy. Those told a narrative, the struggle of the first Prophet and his allies against the darkness in the First War. The ideology of the Goddess was cleanly presented in five pillars. The message was simple: _the Goddess above will deliver you from despair._

Domersek certainly took a more tortuous route in explaining its own ideology, which was probably why there were dozens upon dozens of splinter sects. The text spoke of accepting fate, but at the same time, claimed that it was the fate of the Lyudian people to spread the message of Hashal. There were two currents at play in the text's words, and Diana supposed that any point between the two extremes could be called Domersek.

Akira's voice pulled Diana's attention away from the display. "When's the longest time you've been away from civilization?"

There were a couple moments when Diana's mind was paralyzed by the weight of memories from a life she could no longer live. Then, she said, "I think it was back in middle school. I don't…I don't know if I've told you this, actually, but I didn't grow up in the Sol system. All of my extended family lives on planets in the Alpha Centauri sector."

Akira nodded. "I know."

"How?"

"I guessed," Akira said, shrugging. "Your last name and your costume are Greek, and Alpha Centauri had that ethnically Greek settlement founded a couple centuries back. You knew enough about Earth culture to clearly be from a core sector, but I knew you weren't from Earth."

"Oh," Diana said.

Why hadn't she ever told Akira that? They were friends, weren't they?

Diana rubbed the back of her neck. "I mean, I guess I just thought that you guys lived…more interesting lives than me. Mars and Himmelsschloss and the Xinjiang sectors _matter_ so much more than some stupid vanilla Alpha Centauri colony. So I never told you guys where I was from."

There was some hint of amusement in Akira's face, but it flickered and waned. She had drawn blinds over the light that usually shone out of her.

"My bad, I'm getting sidetracked," Diana said. "Anyway, I was never super close to my parents. We functioned as a family well enough, but I just never formed a connection with them. Really goes to show how social I am, doesn't it?"

"You've never mentioned your parents before," Akira said. "Have you talked to them?"

"Briefly. Their daughter had just become the living incarnation of the Goddess' will. It wasn't uncomfortable at all."

"Diana, I'm sure they still love you."

Diana glanced down at her soul gem, nestled in the clasp of her toga. "Yeah, I know. Anyway, one year in middle school, over Remembrance, I just decided that I wanted to get away from everything. That year, when it was October on Earth, it was the equivalent of summer on my planet, and there was the best sailing weather you could imagine."

Blue, green, aquamarine—Diana tossed words through her head as she stared at the colors dancing through the gem. "So I took a boat out, and just sailed for the holiday. I used this ancient fucking pole to fish, and threw whatever I caught into the survival unit on the ship. And besides the boat, I didn't see any signs of human life for the entire weekend."

When Akira didn't say anything, Diana asked, "Why did you ask the question in the first place?"

"Oh," Akira said. "I…well, you know I was raised on Mars as part of the nobility. I've always been surrounded by wealth and luxury. I was just wondering how you've lived. I come here, and compare what it's like to how I've lived, and what's happening now, and—"

"—you feel bad, that these people have to suffer and persevere, while you got a free ticket through life?"

Akira glanced up at Diana in surprise. "Yeah."

"That's really fucking stupid," Diana said. "What your train of thought did right now was trip and fall flat in a puddle of dumb. Life isn't about wondering whether or not you could handle the problems of other people, it's about how you deal with your own shit. So don't feel guilty about being spoiled or whatever, because nobody but you gives a fuck. We have to deal with the shit we're in right now."

Diana stepped forwards. After biting her lip in hesitation, she looked Akira in the eye. "I need you," Diana said, in a softer tone. "Look, I'm just being realistic here. I might be the Servant, but I can't handle this shit alone. So when I say that I need you, I just need you to be here with me. Not somewhere else, drowning in stupid regrets. Got it?"

A second of silence passed before Diana broke eye contact. "Fuck, I am the world's worst friend," she said. "I'm sorry for shouting at you, if you can ever find it in your heart to forgive this disgrace to the Goddess—"

Akira reached over and wrapped her arms around Diana, which Diana took to be a reasonably obvious sign to shut up.

"Thanks," Akira said, smiling at Diana.

"I still probably shouldn't have yelled at you."

"Well, yeah. But still. You try, which is cute on its own."

Akira had to stifle a giggle as Diana blushed. The giggle turned into a yawn of exhaustion halfway through.

"One of us needs to keep watch while Alexander and Rebecca look for supplies," Diana said. "I'll take the first shift. You look pretty tired."

"Right," Akira said. She tried in vain to cover up another yawn. "Well, have fun," she said, before dropping her head to the table. Her breathing grew heavy and slow.

A lock of Akira's silky black hair had fallen across her face. Diana reached forwards, paused a moment, and then dropped her hand.

"Fuck it," she muttered, before standing and leaving to take watch.

-x-

After the night passed, they ate whatever food Rebecca and Alexander had found for breakfast. The rising sun split the darkness and the light into jagged angles in the house. Diana had thought that she might find the morning comforting, but the house was as still and empty as always, and the shadows on the floor only seemed to remind her of how hollow the house was.

Diana curled up in a corner of the room to eat her breakfast. The walls creaked as she leaned against them, and a cloud of dust swirled up from the floor as she sat down. Nobody was willing to speak, so the house was silent.

Here she was alone, like she had been on her boat, but now, fear instead of serenity enveloped her. What was the difference between the two anyway? Both came to her most readily when she was alone.

It was only after Diana finished breakfast that she noticed something strange.

"So," Diana said, "Lyudians don't pray?"

There was a moment of silence as the attention of the three other people in the room turned towards Diana. Akira, who had been tinkering with a rifle she had found in the house earlier, slowly lowered the weapon and pushed it out of sight. Rebecca dropped her silverware and tilted her body away from Diana. Alexander only raised an eyebrow.

"Some don't."

"I'm sure the lack of prayer is great for the spawn rates," Diana said.

Alexander shrugged. "I'm sorry. But before the war, demons were under perfect control, and now that war has begun, we can hardly be expected to pray the things to death."

Diana would ordinarily point out the irony in Alexander thinking that demon containment had been perfect before the war, but that information was classified. Instead, she crossed her arms and shrugged. "Fair enough," she said.

"So then the question would be why _you two_ continue to pray," Alexander said, "when it can't possibly have any pragmatic benefits."

Praying wasn't something that Diana thought about doing anymore. It never was in the first place. Prayer simply existed as something as natural as thinking and as necessary as breathing. Who _didn't_ do it?

But of course, Diana had examined her own motivations behind the practice from time to time. Alexander couldn't possibly hope to doubt Diana better than she could doubt herself.

 _Still, though,_ Diana thought.

"A religion purely based on achieving some material gain isn't really a religion," Diana said. "There are tons of prominent theologians and senior magical girls who just flat-out say that heaven doesn't exist. I mean, they make some sketchy-at-best historical claims that this was what Kaname Tatsuya first said, but still. We're not in it only for the perks."

"Well, neither are we, obviously."

Rebecca turned back around in her chair to face Diana. "Do you really want to know why?"

The empty house seemed to lie in suspension for a moment, drifting in air so thick that Diana couldn't help but think that it was suffocating her. Tension crawled back into her shoulders. The fatigue that had been chasing Diana ever since she had been struck down caught up with her. And yet, despite the fatigue, Diana still narrowed her eyes at Rebecca. Maybe she wasn't tired enough, or maybe she wasn't yet aware of exactly how tired she was, or maybe the pointlessness of it all hadn't fully struck her yet.

"Our people have been trodden upon by the Hierocracy for centuries," Rebecca said. "The Prophet-Queen purports to represent the Goddess, and if the Goddess has any problem with how the Kaname family has dealt with us, she hasn't spoken up. Why _would we_ pray to her?"

Alexander was about to open his mouth when Diana raised a hand to stop him. It was becoming clearer and clearer to Diana exactly how tired she was.

"I asked the question in the first place," she said, looking at Alexander. "I'm sorry."

Diana slid her gaze towards Rebecca. "Look, what you've just said is, like, four different kinds of heresy and probably grounds to get you thrown into jail for the rest of your life. Lucky for you, I don't know what the word 'Inquisition' means. Also lucky for you, Akira promised that we'd help you."

Plasma artillery crackled in the distance. Diana wondered who was firing at whom, and if it even mattered at all. How did one instance of violence compare to an entire planet engulfed by despair and emptiness?

"But you know what?" Diana said. "I've seen girls die for the Hierocracy and the Goddess above. I wasn't really close the any of them, but I knew their names, and I saw their faces, and I know that they had some dream that they were willing to trade for a life of service. So please, shut the _fuck_ up. I don't give a fuck what you think of the Hierocracy's political philosophy, but don't disrespect the Goddess, because if you disrespect her, you disrespect the girls who died with her name on their lips and her message in their hearts. Got it?"

The sound of the artillery was slowing driving Diana insane.

"Fuck," she muttered, before standing and heading outside. A scraping sound followed her as Akira pushed her chair out to go after her.

Outside, the wind whipped hair into Diana's face, which only served to annoy her further. Her hand twitched, looking for something to grasp, so Diana settled for her thigh. It was soft, and her fingers pressed into the skin and fat and muscle.

She stared for a few seconds at the vast emptiness that now engulfed Rackba. Maybe, if she felt like it, Diana could rip a piece of paper out of her notebook, title it "Rackba Landscape," and be done. It was pretentious, and probably unoriginal, but accurate enough. Infinity was always a strange concept, but if infinity was empty, it became easier to grasp. It was easy to imagine that the emptiness stretched on forever, like the insides of her eyelids, encompassing the entirety of her existence.

Akira opened the door and stood next to her. "Hey."

"I don't know why I asked that stupid question," Diana said. "No shit, they're Lyudians. Why did I _think_ they didn't pray?"

"It's not your fault," Akira said.

There was a moment of silence as Akira fiddled with her costume's sleeves. Neither of them had transformed back into their uniforms in over twenty-four hours. "Sometimes I wonder if I would be like them if I had been born on a Lyudian planet," Akira said. "Everything's relative, isn't it?"

Diana sighed. "I guess."

"Here," Akira said, taking a grief cube out of her pocket. "Do you…"

Diana shook her head. "I saved some, remember?"

"Oh, right. I just—I just thought that you looked like you could use one, you know?" Akira said. She sped through the sentence so quickly that Diana could barely catch the last few words.

"Uh, yeah," Diana said. The cubes in her pocket clinked together as she dug them out and pressed them against her gem.

As the despair was sucked from her soul gem, something wrenched Diana's attention from the empty landscape to Akira's face. Of course, the media had portrayed the Japanese woman as classically beautiful for the past couple centuries, so black hair dye and the _hime_ haircut were perpetually popular, even as fashion trends changed, but still, Diana thought, Akira's wide face and pigtails were hardly the Japanese stereotype, so it didn't explain why—

"Is there something on my face?"

Diana opened her mouth in a way that was probably reminiscent of a fish. "Um."

"We're ready to go," Alexander said, opening the door between them. "If you're all right with it, we'd rather keep the weapons that we found. You can't be blamed if you protect yourself before us, after all, so we need some means of self-defense."

"Right, cool," Diana said. Akira shot her a confused look, which she promptly ignored. "Weapons are fine. Let's go."

-x-

Farms were automated now, and rows and rows of wheat were cut daily by simple AI robots. The wheat was genetically engineered to survive in Rackba's soil. While it would have been more straightforward to just import food from the Hierocracy's breadbasket planets, the Lyudians had always maintained some degree of self-sufficiency.

Akira and Alexander had started a conversation a couple minutes after they had entered the field. Diana insisted that they keep low profiles and use low voices, so the conversation looked somewhat silly, but neither of them seemed to care.

"On Mars, they have huge celebrations every Remembrance," Akira said, "but that happens in all the core sectors. I think the most unique part of Martian culture is the labor memorials."

"Labor?"

Akira nodded. "Unions fought for decades after Mars' initial colonization for increased representation from the Prophet-Queen. Prominent labor union leaders are practically their own class of nobility on Himmelsschloss because of that, and because the factories play such a huge role in Martian life, we have celebrations."

"The Kaname house does have its moments of surrender after all," Alexander said.

Akira glared at him.

"That was said in jest. I do realize that the Lyudian situation would be much worse if it were not for Kaname Haruka's willingness to concede to some of our demands."

Diana bit her lip, but couldn't stop herself from smiling.

"Enough politics," Akira said. "What do you guys celebrate?"

Alexander turned his head to look back at the city. His eyes scanned the torn skyline as if searching for something.

"Godot."

"The Fourth Servant?"

Alexander took his time to speak, enunciating each word carefully in his silky Lyudian accent. "Let me try to explain. Domersek teaches us that we must accept what comes. No matter what great accomplishments we attain, or whatever failures we suffer, all is equal before the hands of time."

Slowly, Alexander ran his hand through the wheat. "So then, you ask us, why do we struggle against the Hierocracy? Here is what a member of the Domersek-Nazra would say: do you see those robots, tending the wheat? They are filled with serums to combat viruses or fungi that might destroy the crop. Like the farmhand robot, the Domerseka's job is to strike at the contamination in the wheat, so that the crop may be fit for the inevitable harvest."

Akira smiled. "You're not a part of the Domersek-Nazra, are you?"

"No."

"So then, what do you believe in?"

"If Hashal comes for me and finds that I lived a life without meaning, or a life of evil, his harvest is empty. Domersek was first taught to its disciples in a series of questions that the disciples had to answer. My question is this: where is the value in life? The answer is in death. If we know that we must one day cease to be, then are we not compelled to strive for good?"

Alexander removed his hand from the wheat. "The Domersek-Nazra have lost the way. Instead of seeking to do good, they are driven only by blind vengeance. Victoria Godot knew the way. In her life, she saved billions, both from Earth and from the Lyudian sectors, from war. War is hell, and I will not let Hashal take me if I have spent a life dedicated to its mindless destruction."

It was strange to hear someone couch their ideas in terms of Hashal, as easily as a Hierocratic citizen would appeal to the Goddess for their reasoning. But still, what Alexander said was reasonable.

Diana was about to comment when she felt a tingling in her spine and saw her soul gem begin to glow.

"Get down!" she shouted, before lasers sliced through the wheat.

It was a microcosm of what had happened to the entire planet. One moment, there had been nothing but a soft breeze and small talk. Then, as if time had frozen, miasma flooded into the area, and demons spawned almost instantaneously.

Well, to Diana, it was fortunate that they now knew that the demons could replicate the trick used to conquer the planet in a matter of seconds.

She saw tall, robed figures flash in and out from the stalks of wheat, as if illuminated by strobe lights. Immediately, her bow flashed into her hands and her wings burst out from behind her.

Akira was being held down by laser fire. Her staff could send out magical bolts fast enough to intercept lasers from one demon, but she was being targeted from multiple sources, and Diana could see that she would soon give out. For one moment, the world was a blur as Diana leaped in front of Akira, sweeping laser fire aside with her wings. Then came the deafening boom as she unleashed an arrow that blew a crater into the field.

Alexander and Rebecca were pressed to the ground. Occasionally, they raised their weapons and took potshots at the demons. The air hummed with the whine of plasma scorching through it.

"Stay close to me," Diana said. When she wasn't putting too much power behind the arrows, she could release a rapid storm of them into the demons.

As Diana dodged one bolt of light, something made her mind stutter and freeze. That wasn't a laser—it was a blob of plasma, but not as concentrated as Hierocracy-issued models, and Alexander and Rebecca were over _there._

When she saw the humans mingling with the demons, she realized. Her magically-enhanced vision zoomed in on the prayer beads they carried. Engraved on each black bead was the symbol of a sword sticking through an hourglass.

Diana didn't bother making her shots non-lethal when she took the heretics out, human and magical girl alike.

An armored demon burst out of the wheat and swiped its sword at Diana's face. Instinctually, Diana raised a hand and caught the blade, before wrenching it out of the demon's hands. _Draw—notch—aim—pull—release—_ took a fraction of the second, and then the demon was blown away.

For that fraction of a second, Diana didn't have time to look behind her. In that fraction of a second, something slammed into her back, lifting her high into the air, before slamming her back down to the ground. One hand grasped at Diana's throat, pinning her. The other hand was transformed into a shining blade, raised over her head.

Diana looked up to see a pale, sickly-colored face. Its features were relaxed and neutral. Its glowing eyes stared into Diana's own. Her guts twisted into a tangled mess as she saw intelligence in that awful face.

It spoke, in a smooth, light, echoing voice, _Do you ever wonder why this happens?_

Diana's wings shook the ground as the demon brought its blade down towards her face. Both of them were launched upwards, and the strike went wild. Diana didn't have any close-ranged weapons, so she knew she had to increase the distance between them.

The two of them landed a couple meters apart. As she scrambled to her feet, Diana drew an arrow back. By the time she was standing, the arrow was halfway to the demon.

Diana's magical vision let her watch as the demon's eyes flashed with light, destroying her arrow in mid-flight. She had no time to dodge before the laser caught her in the gut.

She had been hit by a demon's laser before. This felt like getting struck by the hand of a God. The blast launched Diana backwards, her magic straining to repair the damage done to her body.

The demon leaped forwards and caught Diana before she could hit the ground. Its hands bound her as if she was pressed beneath the weight of the world, and all she could do was struggle as it spoke.

_When you learned we were sapient, it had to bother you. Right? You asked yourself, 'How did a thinking being choose to slaughter hundreds of millions of innocents? How did we choose to be evil?'_

It was nothing like the harsh, guttural words she had heard from the dying demon on Feraxis. This demon spoke as casually as Diana might to her own friends. Through the demon's grip, Diana choked out, "Are you trying to taunt me?"

The demon locked eyes with Diana before letting loose another laser bolt. It was a nail driving itself through Diana's skull, into the soft, grey flesh beyond, and she didn't even register herself screaming in agony.

 _The thing is,_ the demon said, _there really isn't such thing as a choice. There is freedom, but nobody can take it. Whatever happens, happens. That's just how things work._

After the demon finished speaking, in that transition period between thought and action, idea and word, Diana realized, with perfect clarity, that she was going to die.

The demon didn't even have the decency to seem engaged as it mechanically drove Diana into the ground. She heard Akira scream something, before seeing the demon's eyes begin to glow once more.

 _I know what I am, and what I want, and what I do,_ the demon said. _Isn't that more than can be said for humans?_

_Well, whatever. Nothing personal._

There was searing light, and then blackness.

-x-

The same blackness was reflected in a pool of water. Sand whispered half-heartedly along the oasis shores. There was some turbulence in the wind, but the desert had the sense of decorum not to cause too much of a disturbance. Anyway, infinity was a bit too large to give the desert any real character.

Slowly, the blackness faded away, and a reflection of a pink-haired woman with glowing golden eyes took its place.

"So that's where your pawn in the mortal realm stands."

The Goddess of humanity looked up from the pool of water. "What happens next?"

"Seriously?"

"Yes?"

"We're a layer above the fabric of reality. Right now, we exist in an infinitesimal differential of time. No more, no less, although that figure of speech falls flat when you can't really get any _less_ time, doesn't it?"

The voice echoed from every grain of sand in the desert, every molecule of gas in the air, and every cell in the Goddess' body. It was everywhere, and so it was nowhere. Its form was everything, and so it had no form.

"This was how your _first_ pawn pulled her tricks," the voice said. "So I would think that you would be pretty familiar with it already. Not to mention you've existed as an abstraction for all of eternity by now."

Madoka stood perfectly still. "I know what happens next."

"Then why'd you ask the _fucking question?"_

"I was wondering why you decided to stop showing it."

"Oh, yeah, that's a good idea, isn't it? Why don't we try to understand the ineffable?"

The wind blowing through the sands grew slightly stronger.

"It's sad, really," the voice said. "Of course you know what happens next. Both of us do. But you try to pretend like you really don't, like you're still a normal human being. I've seen you talk to them like that."

Madoka closed her eyes and saw a universe behind her eyelids. "There's nothing wrong with being attached to my humanity."

"It makes you a fake."

Madoka took a few steps forward and kneeled by the pool. The water was cool to her skin as she splashed it against her. A tiny smile danced across her face. "I wouldn't think that you'd be concerned with what's fake or real."

"It's part of _who we are,_ " the voice said. "And there's no pretending otherwise. Both of us chose this path, and we're the only ones who have. Although, for a first meeting, I'm _singularly unimpressed_ with how my only company is presenting herself."

"You seem lonely, Hashal."

"I haven't figured out how to do that yet, so that's unlikely," the voice said. "I've gotten irritationdown very proficiently, though. Quite proud of myself on that front. It's such a useful emotion. I know everythingthat happens, and it's quite rare when I can't use the emotion irritationto express my response."

The sky above Madoka was perfectly flat. She had never known that the sky she had seen when she had human eyes had tiny gradients in color, turning the canvas into fluid paint. This sky was a block of one inoffensive shade of blue, stretching into infinity. Madoka gazed up at it and relished the feeling of losing herself in the sky.

"It's not quite accurate to say that I know everything that happens," Madoka said. "I know, but I have yet to experience. So when I told Yoshio—"

"What the fuck is that, and why should I care about it?"

"—I thought you knew everything?"

"That doesn't mean that I remember every single insignificant lifeform that ever blinked into existence."

"Fair enough," Madoka said. "Well, I told one of my 'pawns' that I suspected that you were involved with the demons. I knew that you were, and I knew how. But I hadn't been told yet. And if I'm never told, I'll never know, so you have to tell me, so I can tell him."

"I really don't want to do this."

"But you do it anyway," Madoka said.

The sand picked up speed, slowly losing its previous subtlety. Madoka had to admit that she liked it better when the wind blew faster.

"Demons were always the most interesting phenomena in the universe," the voice said. "Far more amusing than that parlor trick magic, at any rate. So I observed them. I allowed myself to manifest the most insubstantial projection in the physical world and watched them in their containment, laid low after your pawns reduced them to humiliation."

Madoka straightened up from the pool. She was done taking in the landscape.

The voice grumbled, blending in with the sound of the wind. "Well, the demons evolved sapience on their own. Give them the credit for that. It was only a matter of time, anyway. But it took life several billion years, and it only took them a couple thousand. Impressive, if you ask me."

Sand began swirling up in a column before Madoka. "They noticed my presence. A few of them reached out and grabbed me. They devoured me, assimilating me into their miasma. Do you know what the smallest fraction of my power can do when released into the mortal realm?"

Madoka's heart panged with sympathy for Diana.

"The demons who took my power on that lonely Lyudian planet became archdemons," the voice said. "Their planet was in near-constant disarray, so they escaped the containment of your pawns without much difficulty. They collaborated with the local population years before they made their presence known. With their aid, they were able to stow themselves on spaceships and begin breeding miasma in space. They were able to sow the seeds of attack without a single one of your pawns noticing. But even more impressive, the Incubators didn't see a thing."

"And how did they do that?" Madoka asked.

"I have many tricks for impeding the Incubators," the voice said. "The demons learned them all when they took me. They used them then to evade detection, and they are using them right now to block the telepathy of your magical girls. They're also using mytricks to dematerialize their own grief cubes. I do represent decay, after all."

The column of sand grew thicker and more defined. Madoka, in a flash of light, summoned her bow and rested it against her hip.

"So ultimately," Madoka said, "this is all your fault."

"You could say that, yes."

"Do the demons worship you?"

The voice laughed. "Some do. It's hilarious. I might admire them, just as I once admired a few select humans, but I don't give a fuck whether or not they worship me."

"I must admit, your language is much worse than I thought it would be," Madoka said.

This time, the voice's laugh was harsh and ugly. It didn't come from everywhere, but instead, from the pillar of sand advancing towards Madoka. "You know, I once thought that you and I stood on a somewhat equal level," it said. "But _you_ are a _deity,_ like an Incubator, whereas _I_ simply _am._ So I can _be_ whatever I want. You might have come here expecting something different—maybe a pale, hooded figure with a skull for a face and carrying a scythe—and really, I could've been that, as easily as breathing. But I am not, so I was not."

The pillar twisted and looped in on itself. At its tip, a head, flat and pointed, formed out of the sand. The eyes of the serpent were hollow and sunken, and its fangs, despite their insubstantiality, looked sharp enough to cut bone.

"Enough about me. Why don't we talk about you for a bit, Goddess?"

Madoka absent-mindedly adjusted the ribbons in her hair. "Just a moment."

The desert exploded, sending sand flying into empty space. As the sands receded, they revealed a marble floor, decorated with ornate patterns of roses and lined with gold. Above them, a high, vaulted ceiling swept over the sky. Walls of stone erupted out of the ground to surround the two of them. Stained glass windows towering high above the earth cast colored light onto the ground.

A gilded throne, entwined with roses, materialized behind Madoka, but she did not sit down. Instead, she raised her bow and took aim. The pink light from the flare at the bow's tip cast half her face into shadow. The serpent remained still and silent.

The Goddess, terrible and mighty to behold, fired a bolt of energy at the serpent. It entered the serpent's jaws and exited from the roof of the mouth, instantly dispersing the sands in a burst of light. A scream of agony and frustration echoed throughout the hall.

"You are omnipresent, like me," Madoka said, "so if your power is diminished in one place for even a moment, then it is diminished throughout the entire universe for that moment. Am I correct?"

The voice was a raspy whisper in Madoka's ear. "You're just trying to buy your pawns time."

"You told me that they use your power to block telepathy," Madoka said. She propped up her elbow on her throne and rested her cheek on her closed fist. "Not to mention that the archdemons derive their power from you. I like to help my people in any way I can."

"This is what I _hate_ about you," the voice said. "You've intervened at every possible opportunity. You shattered the foundations of reality into a billion pieces just to help the most miniscule _fraction_ of a population that hadn't even gotten off their planet yet. You wrote yourself into the new universe so you could ascend to divinity _._ I didn't even know that sort of temerity was possible."

Madoka tightened her fist around her throne. "I don't think it's unreasonable to demand some respect inside my own hall."

The voice was silent for a couple seconds.

"Well, it was very amusing to watch you screw the Incubators in such an ironic way," the voice said. "In the old universe, the _mahou shoujo_ program was their pride and joy, you know. Pubescent human girls really were the best shot they had at saving the universe. And, in a way, you ended up destroying it, didn't you?"

"You seem to be very involved with the Incubators," Madoka said. "What exactly _are_ you?"

"What am I?" the voice said. "Well, that question is a bit complicated."

Something brushed against Madoka's shoulder. She whipped her head around to see, but only the back of her throne was there.

"I've been called many different names across many different worlds," the voice said. Now, it came from the foot of Madoka's throne, outside of her sight. "I've been called Erishkigal and Thanatos and Yama, but that's only by _your_ people. It doesn't really matter what my name is, because I'm always there, and I don't care what I'm named.

"There are people who think that I'm going to take them to a better place, and there are some people who think that I'm there to pass judgment on the guilty. There were some humans that once thought that I made morality, and they called me God, but _you're_ responsible for the end of that, aren't you?"

The sound of padded feet pressing against the marble floor circled Madoka's throne. For all its grandeur, the hall of the Goddess was very empty.

"It doesn't really matter what people think I'm going to do, because all I have to do is be. I'm pretty good at that. I know what I am, and what I want, and what I do, which is more than can be said for you.

"Once I didn't have a name at all, and I was one among many. Then I was called the Irregular, then the Traitor, and then the Enemy. Now I'm called _entropy,_ and everyone has forgotten that once I didn't have a name."

A white tail flicked at the boundaries of Madoka's vision before it slipped out of view.

"You called me _Hashal,_ and that's reasonably accurate, because I am Hashal, and the Lyudians are the closest to really knowing what I am. But I really don't like taking names that other people give me.

"I'm called many different names across many different worlds," the voice said. "I exist in every single second that passes in this world, from beginning to end, and I'm in every single point in the infinite expanse of space. But no matter when I exist or where I walk, and no matter what I'm called, you can call me Death."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmm
> 
> so there's a revelation i included in this chapter that i implied but did not outright say
> 
> and i don't know if anyone thus far has gotten it? at least nobody's mentioned it on ff.net
> 
> so if you think you have it you can mention it in the comments.


	9. Akrasia

When Diana was pulled out of unconsciousness by the warmth that surrounded her right hand, she surfaced with darkness having seeped into every single pore in her body. It puddled in oily slicks around her and colored Diana's surroundings a murky, nondescript gray. It sank into her bones and dissolved the structure of her being, and all the while Diana could do nothing but stare in uncomprehending muteness at the static fixture of the sky above her.

The warmth surrounding her hand tightened around her, generating a signal that rushed through her body. She jolted in response, shivering, before her mind began to restructure her thoughts back into something resembling coherence. Slowly, Diana tried to sit up.

Akira gently pushed her back down. "Not now."

Diana's mouth was dry, and her teeth and jaw ached with disuse. Speaking made her feel rusted over. "Why am I still alive?"

"I'm…"

Something caught Akira's eye, and she looked away from Diana.

"I'm not sure. Something happened to the demons, and they withdrew."

Exhaustion etched itself into every crumbly word Akira spoke.

There was a curious numbness that tingled in Diana's face. Idly, she moved her hand towards it, only for Akira to dart out and catch her hand.

Diana blinked. "What?"

"Y-your face…"

An image of blinding white light flashed through Diana's head.

"It's not finished healing yet."

It was only then that Diana noticed the apprehension in Akira's expression. Akira was only a Hearth engineer. Christine had managed demon outbreaks and May had been in the Inquisition, but what had Akira seen of war?

Diana leaned her head back into the ground. "I look like something out of a horror show, don't I?"

Akira shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm sorry."

Slowly, Akira withdrew her hand from Diana's. She buried her head between her knees and wrapped her arms around her body. Her voice was muffled by the folds of her costume.

"Goddess, I was so worried about you."

Diana reached a hand up to her chest to touch her soul gem, only to find the clasp that ordinarily held the gem empty. A quick scan of the area revealed her soul gem sitting on a nearby table, surrounded by grief cubes.

"Where'd we get those?"

"Your reserves. You—without them, you would've died, I think."

Diana let her body fall back to the ground. "Dammit."

There was silence between the two of them, filling the air as thick as smoke. Diana raised her eyes to the ceiling. The house that they were in was much less opulent than the clergyman's retreat. If she had to guess, this place belonged to farmers who subsisted on the crop of their robots.

It was with some surprise that Diana realized that she had been feeling disappointment all along. Ever since she had contracted, the fear of death had hung over her. Death wasn't a distant danger, it was a _fate—_ something that some people even chose, walked into willingly, in the service of the Goddess. And she knew that if she died, she would only be the fifth martyred Servant. Nothing out of the ordinary.

There was more to it than that. Oblivion was scary. Diana knew that there were billions of martyrs who had sacrificed themselves for the Goddess above. But what could the Goddess do for them after death? It was, in every single respect, the absolute end, and Diana didn't think that the story her actions presented could have any end but an unsatisfying one.

So then, why was she disappointed? She had escaped death— _something_ had snatched her straight out of its unforgiving grasp. She had been given the opportunity _not_ to end.

Maybe, she thought, and once again, the irony she had trusted in for fifteen years failed to make her smile, it was because life dominated by the fear of death wasn't much different than death itself. Or maybe she was just tired of fighting and running. There wasn't much room for lucky breaks when she was caught between struggle and destruction.

And of course, there were people who had it worse. The girls she had seen cut down by the demons, the world she had watched burn as the demons consumed it, Inquisitional girls, chained and tortured by their past—there was a world of suffering and death outside of Diana's own. But hadn't _they_ persevered? They believed in the Goddess.

Diana was beginning to doubt the wisdom of the Goddess in choosing a faithless reject like her to be her avatar in this universe. Maybe she hadn't been chosen at all.

And either way, Diana wasn't very willing to use the suffering of other people to make herself feel even worse. Regardless of how awful she felt, the sheer silliness of such a pointless race to the bottom was enough to draw her away from that line of reasoning.

Diana sighed. "That demon had me at its mercy," she said. "Even if the demons suffered some sort of setback, it doesn't make sense that it wouldn't just kill me and then go."

"Akira saved your life."

Diana turned her head around to see Alexander, leaning against the doorframe. His back was resolutely turned towards her, and Diana wasn't sure whether or not to appreciate or resent the gesture.

"We could hear the demons talking," Alexander said. He stumbled a little on the word "hear," but apart from that Diana couldn't see any change in his composure. "The lesser ones wanted to kill you, and their leader was going to, but Akira forced them back."

"It was weird, of course," Akira said. "I mean, I didn't expect it to _work._ What chance did I have if that thing could take you out? But like I said, something happened to them. Telepathy was also restored, so we established communication with the remaining survivors. We know where they are."

Alexander shifted in the doorframe. "They're expecting us. You."

"To save them?"

Alexander shrugged. "Presumably."

Diana looked into Akira's eyes, and for one terrifying moment, she could see nothing but pity in them. Fear and anger made for an interesting combination, and it swirled on the surface of Diana's face for all the world to see.

On the table, Diana's soul gem burned with a sudden light. Diana had never experienced accelerated regeneration before, and the sensation could only be described as unpleasant, but after her beating at the hands of the archdemon, Diana's perspective had shifted considerably. "Unpleasant" wasn't anything to be scared of, "life-threatening" was, and there was plenty of that to spare.

Akira started in alarm as Diana's wounds began to fill with rapidly-expanding flesh. "What are you _doing?_ The strain on your gem—"

The floorboards creaked as Diana stood. "I'm the Servant of the Goddess, right?" she said, in a voice completely devoid of any conviction in the words she spoke. "My soul gem was made to handle this. This— _this_ is my destiny, isn't it? The Goddess sure as fuck isn't going to come down from the skies and help those girls. We're all that's left."

Diana saw Alexander shiver slightly. "You can turn around now. I'm finished healing."

There was a tiny glimmer of fear in Alexander's eyes as he turned to face Diana, but it was masked, or maybe only subdued, by the stony expression that clung to the rest of his face. Diana was reminded of the Lyudian magical girl in her final moments before Maria had killed her. Lyudians, in her experience, were very good at making stony expressions.

Though the notion occurred to her, Diana didn't bother considering if that was a feature innate to all Lyudians or a result of circumstance.

"I'll be waiting with Rebecca," Alexander said, before walking away.

Diana was about to follow him when she felt Akira's hand grab her sleeve.

"Did you learn that from a movie?"

Akira flinched behind her. "I just—"

Diana knew what she wanted to say. Akira wanted to beg for Diana to stop speaking like that, because wasn't she usually friendly, even if she did have a sharp tongue? There was a space between them so long as Akira's eyes met the back of Diana's head. If Diana turned around, she knew that Akira would find her voice again. She would speak, and maybe Diana would find comfort in her words.

But if she were to turn around, that would be a decision, something to shatter the placid surface of the status quo, and Diana was quickly discovering that she was about as afraid of decisions as she was of death itself.

Akira's hand slipped away from Diana and fell limply to her side as the Servant of the Goddess walked away.

-x-

The peaks of the ruined city drove themselves, straight and regal, into the dusty sky. If Diana squinted hard enough, she could pretend that the buildings were demons, drifting quietly and aimlessly across the landscape.

Over the past day of travel, they had come across the signs of Hierocracy magical girls in the area. There was the girl, with her costume torn and burned by demon lasers. Dead. There was the girl, with no identifiable wounds, her soul gem dissolved into the nothingness from which it had materialized. Dead.

Diana had never heard the distress call from the Armada survivors herself, and she was beginning to doubt that, when they managed to reach the coordinates, anything would be left.

"We need to go through that city," Alexander said. He pointed at the mountains surrounding the metropolis on both sides. "Going through there would slow us down by days."

"All right," Diana said. "So?"

Alexander and Rebecca shared a quick glance.

"That was the center of Domersek-Nazra influence on this planet," Alexander said. "On Rackba, if somebody's a rebel, they're probably Domersek-Nazra. The reverse holds true as well. Wandering in there might be risky."

Out of the corner of her eye, Diana noticed Rebecca bite her lip. She had never seen the Lyudian give an outward sign of anxiety before.

An image of black rosary beads flashed through Diana's mind. She had _spoken_ to demons, inhumanity dripping from their every word. How could the heretics possibly have decided to side with the demons? Didn't that make the heretics monsters in their own right?

Something thin and runny and scalding hot bubbled just beneath Diana's skin when she thought about the heretics. It diffused through her, slowly becoming her, and it took Diana a while to realize that it was paranoia.

There really _were_ heretics collaborating with demons, infiltrating themselves deep within Lyudian society, deep enough that nobody had noticed their heresy for however long they had been working with the demons. Wasn't paranoia justified? The Lyudians could hardly be said to be devout followers of the Goddess when they worshipped Hashal along with her.

Those who resisted the Goddess were resisting hope itself. They were the embodiment of evil. The parts of Diana's mind self-conscious of the way the Hierocracy influenced her thinking was being buried under layers of fatigue and frustration, and Diana was not altogether sorry to see it go. If anything, Diana had no desire to stab herself with sharp thoughts.

"We can't afford to waste time," Akira said. "I guess we don't have a choice, then?"

Akira's eyes darted between Rebecca and Diana, searching for disapproval. Diana averted her gaze.

"We'll get there before noon if we hurry," Alexander said. "If we hurry, we can move through the city and get to your rendezvous point by nightfall. I know an inconspicuous path into the city. The place looks dead, but we should keep out of sight nonetheless."

Alexander led them on a path angled slightly north to the main roads leading into the city. Seemingly abandoned watchtowers swayed in the dusty wind, a reminder that this city was especially interested in who was coming and leaving.

"It's passed hands about a dozen times in the past decade," Alexander said. "Strongest fortifications on this planet. When the demons came, it was in the hands of the Domersek-Nazra."

Diana snorted. "Well, I wonder why."

Alexander led them to an old fusion power plant built flush against a river. They were still surrounded by farmland, and Diana was quickly growing sick of the sound of dead vegetation crunching under her feet.

"How did you know about this?" Rebecca asked, looking at her brother curiously.

Alexander was quiet for a moment. "Joseph and I were exploring the area when we were kids," he said, "when the Inquisition came. They were doing Inquisitional business that I won't detail, and Joseph and I ran and hid while fearing for our lives the entire time, but I did see them use the entrance. There was a password, though."

Diana summoned her bow, drew an arrow, and fired at the ground. With a rumble, the earth caved in, revealing an entrance into a tunnel. Alexander fixed her with a half-amused glance that Diana didn't bother reciprocating.

They walked through the tunnel in absolute silence. There was an overall air of depression in the air. Maybe if they were heroes, and this was some sort of noble quest, they could have gotten some banter going. Maybe if Diana wasn't quite sure why she was still alive, she would have the motivation to mount the feeblest attempt at conversation. But Diana was not very inclined to speak at the moment, and as they walked through darkness, interspersed only by weak lighting strips, the monotony imprinted itself into her very soul.

The tunnel exited into a warehouse that Diana thought would be conspicuous in its abandoned nature, but it was good enough for the Inquisition.

Akira pointed to a set of stairs leading up to the roof of the warehouse. "Before we step outside, you guys think it would be a good idea to get a vantage point?" she asked. Alexander nodded, and neither Diana nor Rebecca complained, so they began to ascend.

When she reached the rooftop, Diana's body froze.

In the streets below, several figures surrounded two magical girls, blindfolded and bound, kneeling against a wall. Their soul gems were nowhere to be seen. Diana couldn't hear what was being said, but she knew that the magical girls' captives were heretics.

It was an execution.

Her hands were beginning to tremble, so she snatched one wrist with her other hand and squeezed tight.

"Diana," Akira said.

Diana ground her teeth together. "I can't _believe_ this—"

"We have to do something!" Akira said. "Those are Hierocratic magical girls—"

In the span of a millisecond, Diana drew her bow and took aim. The head of one of the heretics exploded, and then chaos erupted. Plasma fire took out the rest of the heretics while magical girls with stylized letter i's emblazoned on their uniforms appeared out of nowhere to free the captives.

The scream of Reaper drones was more a psychological attack than anything else. Granted, it took some energy to maintain absolute sonic cloaking, but that was nothing compared to the energy consumed by the electromagnetic cloaking fields that the Reapers generated. Pilots turned off sonic cloaking to advertise their presence to the enemy.

Diana had asked May about the noise after watching a video of an Inquisitional attack. Why would an Inquisitional pilot telegraph their arrival? Wouldn't it make more sense to only remain silent?

Inquisitional doctrine, as May explained it, was to, first and foremost, strike fear into the enemy's hearts. Even if some magical girls—and these were only the very fastest ones—could react in the small space of time between hearing the drones and being hit by their attack, striking at the nerves of the heretics was worth the slight tactical disadvantage.

There had been a faint, almost unnoticeable smile on May's face as she spoke. Diana had felt guilty for being unnerved.

"For fuck's sake," Diana muttered. "Somehow, we maintain some air support on this planet, and here we are, pissing it away by bombing the shit out of heretics instead of getting help to the stranded girls."

But, at the very least, it was satisfying that somebody was doing _something_ to fight the heretics.

Alexander and Rebecca had thrown themselves to the ground upon hearing the drones. Akira immediately raised her staff over them in a protective stance. "We need to let the Inquisition know that we're here," she said. "If an Inquisitor finds them, it'll be bad."

Diana raised her bow to the sky. "By that, she means that they'll kill you. But you probably don't need me to tell you that."

Once in the air, Diana's arrow exploded, sending lines of red and white light into the sky. After a few seconds, the symbol of the Hierocracy shone above them.

Rebecca was trembling. "You expect us to go _with_ the Inquisition?"

Diana shrugged. "Yeah."

A drone broke formation and flew towards their rooftop. The bright lights mounted on the front of the drone momentarily blinded Diana.

The grace in the way the magical girl jumped out the back of the drone that was completely absent in her voice. "Ma'am," she said, glancing from the bow in Diana's hand to the Lyudians huddled behind her.

"You have a new job. Get these two to safety. They're with us," Diana said.

"Understood."

"And tell D'Arco that I'm here."

" _General_ D'Arco, with all due respect."

"Right. Sorry."

The agent's face hardened as she turned to the Lyudians. "Come," she said, her voice about as emotive as an AI's.

Alexander's face was white. "I'm _not_ going with them," he said. His composure had been cracked, and now it was crumbling into pieces around him. He scraped at the wall behind him, desperately looking for something to grab on to. "You can't be serious."

The agent raised her sword, reflecting the sun into the Lyudian's eyes. "If you refuse to comply—"

A high-pitched whine interrupted the agent. All eyes turned to Akira, who was aiming her staff at the other magical girl. Orange light gathered around the tip.

The agent registered no signs of surprise. "I was given orders to take those Lyudians."

"I can pilot a drone. Give me one, and I'll take them to safety personally."

A second passed, and Diana couldn't help but note that, of the two, only the Inquisitional agent had been trained to fight other magical girls.

The agent lowered her sword. "Fine. Please don't give me orders and then prevent me from fulfilling them."

After the agent had left, Diana turned to Akira. "You're leaving, then?"

"I can set the drone's autopilot to take you guys somewhere outside the city. _Away_ from the Inquisition," Akira said. "Sound good?"

Alexander nodded slowly.

Akira bowed her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that you'd be so afraid of the Inquisition."

A strangled noise of confusion and amusement escaped from Alexander's throat, and he looked at Akira like she was crazy.

A second later, a second drone was perched next to the rooftop. The first drone had left as soon as it had deposited the agent. It was the same on land as in space: large objects standing still were destroyed very quickly. Akira took a few seconds to fiddle with the console before she waved the Lyudians over.

Rebecca only stared forwards as she entered the drone. She still looked as if she was entering a prison ship. Alexander glanced behind him a second before the door closed. His eyes were filled with fear and regret.

For a moment, Diana felt herself reflect Alexander's regret. How many innocent Lyudians had the empire she served killed? How many lives had been ended in the name of the Goddess she served?

_They have helped the demons from the beginning._

"We're fighting," Diana said, looking down over the rooftop. "Right?"

"I don't see any demons."

"So?"

Akira bit her lip. "Diana, what happened?"

_I was almost killed because I was stupid enough to stay on this planet, barely survived, and then got half my face blown off by what's probably the most powerful being on this planet. I'm only alive because that thing was too stupid to aim for my soul gem. I'm alone and afraid—too afraid to ask you for help, too._

_Because I know the hate inside me is ugly, and I don't want to show you that._

"Those are our comrades," Diana said. "Hierocracy magical girls. And we can't stand by and do nothing while they're in combat. We swore an oath."

Reaper drones continued to scream around them. The fight had lasted barely two minutes, but already several buildings were on fire if not outright destroyed, and infantry combat was widespread throughout the city. The Inquisition attacked methodically and cyclically. First, combat drones swept across the target, inundating everything in sight with antimatter charges and plasma fire. After everything that wasn't under cover had been turned into molten slag, transport drones dropped in kill teams to eliminate heavily guarded key targets. After a brief period of time, a mixture of combat and transport drones flew in to extract the agents, and the cycle began anew.

In the distance, Diana could see several Inquisitional drones continually flying across one patch of ground. Her soul gem could sense the largest concentration of magic in that area.

"Inquisition's getting bogged down over there. I'm going."

"If you're going, then I'm going," Akira said, stepping forwards. "I'll see what I can do from a distance."

Something, which Diana would later identify as shame, made her pause for a second. Then, she leaped off the rooftop, with Akira following close behind.

Plasma fire shot out from a dozen sniper nests, nestled into the towers of the city, as she flew towards her target. None of them damaged her, and in return, she fired arrows that almost certainly killed the snipers.

The Inquisition was focused on assaulting, ironically, a Hierocratic cathedral. Initially built as a symbol of imperial power on the planet, the cathedral had rapidly become the power base of whichever side controlled the city at the moment. Now, there was a heretic sticking a gun out of every window and underground containment bunker.

Diana quickly located the commanding sergeant of the Inquisitional forces, who, she had learned, was always the magical girl wearing the longest, scariest-looking coat. "Hey," she said, landing beside the girl.

The sergeant was crouching behind air-dropped Inquisitional armor. Long-range magical girls occasionally peeked out from behind the hulking mass to exchange fire with the heretics.

"Servant," the sergeant said, nodding. "Plasma mortar is preventing us from advancing. This machine also needs repairs."

Akira stepped forwards. "I can take care of that." The head of her staff clicked and began to transform, sprouting extra tips and glowing lines. Light shot out as Akira aimed her staff at the tank, which gave off a low groan as it began repairing itself.

"Call in another round of the drones," Diana said, "and then I'll take out the cannon."

"Understood," the sergeant said. Half a minute later, the sound of Reaper drones screaming overhead reached Diana's ears.

The sergeant placed her right fist over her heart. "May the Goddess be with you, Servant."

Diana said, "As with you," but only because it was more trouble than it was worth not to. Then, everything that wasn't tagged by the drone AI as friendly was covered in round after round of plasma fire, seeding renewed confusion and disarray into the heretic ranks. Before the dust cleared, Diana spread her wings and flew to the mortar.

To the heretics' credit, they had an anti-drone cannon positioned next to the mortar, which they had successfully concealed until now. Their aim was good, but Diana batted aside the plasma with a sweep of her wings, and then she was on top of the heretics.

Her bow was unwieldy in close quarters. Using her wings to fight would waste magic. That left only the inelegant methods.

Diana picked the first heretic up by the neck, faster than his human nerves could react, and snapped the life out of him. A plasma rifle fell from his hands into Diana's. Three shots later, and the other heretics were dead.

A humming sound behind her alerted Diana to the presence of a transport drone, dropping off combat specialists into the cathedral. There were two magical girls, and one of them grinned in a wide-toothed smile that dominated her entire face.

"Who'd have thought that the Servant fought like an Inquisitional girl all along?"

The other girl frowned. "Show some respect."

Diana noticed that her hands were trembling. She turned away from the Inquisitional girls and tossed the rifle out of the cathedral. As a gesture, either to spite the first girl or comfort herself, Diana summoned her bow.

"Not gonna lie, that felt pretty crude," Diana said. "I'd hate to have to do that on a regular basis."

The first girl laughed. "Didn't you hear? We've got a _Crusade_ going on. The enemy is vermin and hate, and we are the forces of justice and hope. So we gotta _kill them all!_ You know how it goes. _In the Goddess' name, let_ none survive!"

"Just do your fucking job," Diana said. "Come on. We're clearing this place out."

The girl was laughing harder now, and Diana almost wanted to turn around and yell at her some more. Thankfully, the other girl did it for her and snapped, "Shut up!"

With the anti-drone artillery taken out, the Inquisition advanced rapidly on the building, deploying kill teams through every available entry point. Elsewhere in the city, the Inquisition had already done most of its job. The targets of Inquisitional attacks were ninety-nine times out of one hundred taken by surprise, as drones kept their cloaking systems on for as long as possible. Plasma fire, antimatter charges, and kill teams made short work of unprepared resistance, and the heretic forces outside of the cathedral had been broken.

The inside was only a matter of time.

Diana turned to the second girl. "Do you guys need any help in particular, or should I just march in and shoot heretics?"

"The most heavily fortified areas are at the bottom of the tunnel system," the girl said. "If you want to make things easy for us, go down there first. You can get down via the containment cells. The heretics will have overridden authorization protocol, so just break your way in."

_It's not like we have much containment left to lose, anyway._

The girl hoisted a giant axe onto her shoulders. "Once you're done, we'll send teams down to clean up. Gather information. Confiscate weapons. Detain anybody who's left alive."

The first girl smiled. "If you feel like leaving anybody alive. Not like we give a fuck."

Diana didn't bother answering. Instead, she turned on her heel and walked away into the main body of the cathedral. Stained glass littered the floors, and pews, broken into splinters, leaned against the walls like dying soldiers. It was exceedingly obvious that battle after battle had rocked these holy walls.

A mosaic of the Goddess covered the back wall. It was a second-rate piece of art, clearly a derivative of the more grandiose _Freude_ mosaic on Earth. The composition was uninspired, and the themes trite and overused.

It still pained Diana to see the scars of war mar the image of the Goddess—to see what could only possibly be a ten or twenty-year-old piece already be a crumbling mess. Her scribbles were hardly transcendental either. Somebody had put their hopes into that mosaic, carving it with love and faith in the Goddess, only for all the beauty that the mosaic might once have held to die on the bloodied plain of human conflict.

The vault doors leading to the containment cells were jammed shut, with only a tiny crack of an opening left. Diana pried her hands through the opening, and with the scream of shearing metal, tore the door of its hinges. Ordinarily, there would be an elevator leading down to the lower levels of the containment cells, but only a shaft remained. Diana landed at the bottom with the raspy whisper of her wings scraping against the shaft walls.

She walked forth into silence and emptiness. Compared to the ornate artwork and magnificent architecture of the cathedral above, the containment cell exuded an atmosphere quite like the one on the surface. They had thought themselves so secure, and yet, for all their precautions, humanity still had to face its old enemy.

"Come on, you assholes," she said, trying to ignore the way her voice strained with the weight of her thoughts. "Come out and play."

Her wings cast the hallway before her in deep shadow. As she walked forwards, the shadows waved back and forth, like black stalks of wheat swaying in a breathless wind.

There were side rooms, which Diana ignored. Those were too small to house anything significant. If there were heretics, they'd be defending something important.

Finally, she found a door big enough to plausibly hide heretics to kill. In one second, she had blasted the door aside, and in the next, the hum of plasma weapons filled her ears, and bolts of light seared themselves into her eyes.

The door had opened up into a large cavern that evidently served as the entrance to the tunnel network. Heretics had dug themselves in along the walls of the cave, allowing them to rain fire down on Diana from most angles.

It hardly mattered either way. No fortification erected by mortal hands could withstand the assault of a divine Goddess' will.

As she tore into the heretic forces, smashing through bunker walls and scattering their forces, something occurred to Diana, a distant thought that chilled her heart. The bunker had to have been built before the war broke out. It wasn't necessarily surprising, because the heretic on Feraxis had described a conspiracy that had existed long before the war started.

Still, though, every physical reminder that hundreds of millions of lives had been lost to a premeditated heretic knife lodged in humanity's back was enough to drive one more sliver of hate into Diana's heart.

The worst part was the other magical girls. Diana knew that the Inquisition was taught that a _mahou shoujo_ who defected from the Hierocracy had committed the ultimate heresy—that they, unlike ordinary humans, had broken their oaths of service to the Goddess, that they were ungrateful of their promised salvation, and that they, worst of all, had chosen to fight their sisters.

The girl in front of her couldn't even hold her sword without it shaking. By now, Diana had shattered the heretic position. Inquisitional forces were already streaming in from the cathedral above. Bloody, mangled corpses lay in peaceful repose around the two girls.

Diana took some pride in the fact that her bow didn't shake when she drew it back.

"Stand down," she said.

Tears streamed down the girl's face. With a strangled yell, she lunged forwards.

Diana heard the familiar smooth sound of an arrow flying out of her bow, and then another body joined the others.

Her soul gem almost slipped out of her fingers as she removed it from her costume's clasp. There were rivulets of darkness flowing amongst the ordinary aquamarine glow of the gem, and Diana knew from experience that once poison got into a river, it was hard to get out.

 _Now_ her hands were trembling as she searched the bodies for the magical girls—as she saw the blank, unseeing eyes stare at her, windows to burnt-out shells. She managed to find four grief cubes, which were enough to cleanse her gem.

There was an Inquisitional kill team waiting for her at the entrance to the cave. As she exited, they bowed their heads as one.

"Servant."

"They didn't want to surrender," Diana said. Her hands felt slick as she gripped her bow. "You guys have cleanup to do?"

"Weapons confiscation and retrieval. We need to find the Shivan dealers that did business with these heretics," one girl said.

"And, you never know," another girl said. "There might be survivors."

Without another word, the girls filed into the smoking ruins of the heretics.

The tunnel system below the cathedral was near maze-like. By this point in the battle, the Inquisition had already won. Taking the city would allow Maria to move her girls and drones from whatever hole they had been hiding in for the past few days into a fortified position.

Still, though, was it worth whatever losses the Inquisition had incurred by taking the city? Maria had to be somewhere. Diana could ask the General herself.

Diana was taken out of her thoughts by her unfamiliar surroundings. She had wandered into a new part of the tunnel complex.

She realized, with a bit of unease, that she hadn't seen any Inquisitional agents in some time.

Then, from a flight of stairs leading deeper into the complex, there was a scream, followed by someone yelling. Diana quickly rushed down the stairs.

What she found was, at first glance, confusing.

There were children. Not teenagers like her, but a boy and a girl, far too young to contract, huddled against a wall, whimpering in fear. They were Lyudians.

There was a woman. She was thin, her cheekbones stretching her face out like a drum, and her hair tangled and matted. Defiance and fear mixed like gasoline and fire in her eyes as she stood in front of her children.

There was a corpse with half of its torso missing, bleeding out on the floor.

And then there was the magical girl pointing a plasma rifle at the woman.

"—and _confess!"_ the girl shouted.

Immediately, Diana summoned her bow and aimed at the magical girl. "What the fuck are you doing?" she exclaimed. "They're—"

"Put the bow down, for fuck's sake—"

"I'm the _Servant,_ you listen to what I _fucking say!"_

Diana was trembling, as adrenaline pumped through her bloodstream, setting off every alarm it could inside her head. Everything was confused and noisy and chaotic, and she could not make sense of any of it.

The girl still hadn't put the rifle down.

"They're heretics," the other girl said, and Diana noticed that she was shaking just as violently. "Look!"

She stretched out one finger in condemnation, and for the first time, Diana saw the blood-stained black rosary beads tangled in the corpse's hand.

The girl bit down her lip hard enough to draw blood. "They were hiding him," she said. "Harboring a heretic! A member of the Domersek-Nazra!"

Diana began to lower her bow.

Part of her brain was screaming at her to raise her weapon, but a larger part of her was dragging her arm down. With each agonizing inch she moved, she felt tortured by what she was doing.

But she did it anyway.

"They won't confess," the girl said. "They won't confess that they're traitors to the Hierocracy. And if they don't confess, then they haven't surrendered. That leaves me only one choice."

Diana shook her head. "Wait, wait, just fucking stop! You can't kill them!"

Her bow still pointed at the ground. Diana was gripping it hard enough to make the wood creak.

"Sure I can," the girl said, snaring. "You!" she shouted, turning to the woman. "Tell the Servant why you're here."

The Lyudian girl cried out, before the woman turned around and silenced her. _She's her mother,_ Diana realized, frozen in horror.

Slowly, the woman turned back around. "We—we've had nothing to do with the heretics. When the demons attacked, we were driven out of our homes. This was the only safe place! We had to hide!"

" _Nothing to do,_ " the girl repeated. "Look at him! What do you fucking call those beads?"

"Just _stop,_ " Diana said, rapidly shaking her head. "They're _not_ heretics."

The girl narrowed her eyes at Diana. "Yeah, and how are you so sure? I bet that's what they all said before the war broke out. _Oh,_ I'm _sure_ these people aren't heretics. They hide like rats in the shadows. They're a goddamn infestation, and it's our fault for not wiping them out sooner. They _hid_ long enough to _do all of this!_ Even if the information's classified, a blind woman could read between the fucking lines!"

The woman started sobbing. "He was _innocent—_ "

"You can't tell with these people," the girl said. "You can _never_ tell which ones are clean and which ones are out to stab you in the back. And the only way to not get stabbed in the back is to assume that they're all out to get you. Don't you fucking see? If we had only done that from the beginning—if we had _only—"_

"Put down the gun," Diana said, stepping forwards. "By the Goddess, you can't do this."

"Put down the gun or what?"

The girl's voice was awful in its softness.

"Kill me."

Diana's eyes widened in horror. "I'm not going to kill you _."_

The girl waved her rifle at the woman. "Then I'm going to shoot her. She's a heretic, and she needs to die."

"I _can't_ kill you," Diana said, her voice hoarse and cracking.

"They're all _dead!"_ the girl screamed. Diana watched as the other girl's mind began slowly slipping out of her own control. "Everyone I knew. Everyone I cared about—all _dead!_ This woman helped the demons kill them, so I'm going to kill her. They deserve justice."

"She didn't have anything to do with the Domersek-Nazra," Diana said. Slowly, she took one step towards the girl. "This—this can't be justice."

There was a moment of awful fear when Diana realized that she was trying to convince herself just as much as she was trying to convince the other girl.

"She was harboring a heretic! She could have told someone. How many people did _she let die?_ You think that if she believed in the Goddess, she would have let this happen? As far as I'm concerned, anybody who worships Hashal is just as bad as a demon."

The girl turned away from Diana. With deliberate finality, she stared into the woman's eyes. "I know you can't see things the way I do. So if you want to stop me, you'll have to kill me. That's the way things work anyway."

Desperation pierced through the girl's voice. "Don't you see? I should have died with them."

The woman turned to Diana. Her lips began forming a word: " _Please—"_

Diana's reflexes allowed her to experience every agonizing millisecond it took the girl to pull the trigger. Every bit of time that passed was more time that Diana spent only watching. And as she watched light blossom from the tip of the girl's gun, she knew that a part of her was perfectly fine letting this happen.

It was the part of her that knew that, even if the woman wasn't guilty, she probably wasn't innocent either. It was the part of her that refused to believe that the Hierocracy could do any wrong. It was the part of her that hated itself because she always came up empty when she tried to find the strength to face the demons without faltering.

Fear gave rise to a longing for security, so this was all right. Hierocratic magical girls were protectors _._ Diana couldn't strike out against one of her could she have done anything?

The Lyudian girl started crying again as the body of her mother crumpled against the ground. Snarling, the magical girl turned her rifle to the children.

A knife sailed out of the darkness and sank into the magical girl's neck with a wet, sloppy noise. The girl let loose a bloody gurgle and dropped the gun. A second later, her eyes glazed over, and she collapsed. Her soul gem still shone, indicating that she was only asleep.

It was the Inquisitional girl who had laughed at Diana earlier. There was no humor in her face now.

"We found civilians in other places too," she said. "They were hiding from the demons in the safest place they knew. What the fuck happened here?"

"We need to get those children to safety."

"I'm _going to do that,_ asshole." Diana was struck by how readily sacrilegious the girl was. "I want to know why an Inquisitional girl was preparing to execute two children, and why you weren't doing _shit_ about it!"

The girl trembled in fury as she locked eyes with Diana. Then, all the anger drained out of her, and her lips curled into a smile.

"I believed in you," she said, giggling. "I believed in you. Fuck it all."

Later, when the dust had cleared, Diana found the first dark corner that she could, curled herself up in a blanket of self-loathing, and sobbed.

-x-

The Inquisition was fast to re-establish control of the city. Either the heretics or the demons were sure to mount a counter-attack later. Now, the Inquisition had to take advantage of what remained of the city's resources to recoup their losses in preparation of the oncoming assault.

Diana stared blankly up at the featureless sky. Her eyes traced the paths of drones, streaking silently across her field of vision. If she was thinking anything, she wasn't aware of the fact. Maybe there were just too many thoughts bouncing around in her mind for her to separate the signal from the noise, but it was more likely that she was simply empty.

The Inquisition found her like that, lying down on the rooftop of a rare untouched building. "General D'Arco heard that you were in the city. She wants to have a conversation."

Diana felt her lips move, but she herself wasn't entirely sure what she had said.

"Well?" the Inquisitional agent asked.

The next thing Diana's mind recognized as worthy of registering was Maria's face. She wasn't smiling. There had been a hole punched into the reservoir of confidence that the Inquisitional General carried with her, and now all the knowing smiles and witty remarks were draining out onto the ground and soaking into the dirt. This planet siphoned up hope like a sponge.

"Servant," Maria said, nodding.

"General D'Arco."

Maria stared at Diana's face. "I knew that you were alive, even before that Hearth girl broadcasted it yesterday. I also knew that this meeting was going to happen, which was why I called for you. But beyond that, I don't know. So if you have anything that you think I might need to know, feel free."

"It's pretty shitty news."

"Well," Maria said, closing her eyes, "you might as well get on with it."

Ordinarily, when Diana told stories, she tried to inject them with at least some humor. But there was nothing _funny_ about the way that demon in the wheat field had brought her an inch to death, so instead, Diana told it in as few words as possible.

"How many other people know?"

"Akira and two Lyudians. It hardly matters, though. When the demons come for this city, that thing will be leading them. Its existence won't be a secret for long."

Maria bit her lip. "And you're certain that you can't defeat it?"

"I told you that my survival's a miracle."

The gentle whistle of the wind filled Diana's ears as D'Arco stared at the ground in silence. Then, with the rustle of her uniform, D'Arco summoned her soul gem onto the desk. The gem was colored a shade of red that would have evoked images of passion and violence if it weren't for the darkness that swirled inside.

"The situation seems unsalvageable, doesn't it?" Maria said.

"Yeah."

"I still have enough magic to look into the future and see how the upcoming battle ends. It will take most of what I have, and I cannot in good conscience waste grief cubes on an unnecessary expenditure of magic."

Diana rubbed her eyes. "So if I think that we should know, then you'll do it."

"Exactly."

"Don't do it."

Whatever destiny the universe had bestowed upon her was, in all probability, ugly in every way—a just and proper sentence, given the nature of her own being. Diana didn't want to know what was going to happen, because that was the only way she could maintain the delusion that the noose of causality wasn't tightening around her neck.

That was basically how hope worked, right?

"Well," Maria said, "that will be all, then."

A sudden realization struck Diana. "Where's Julia? I don't think I've ever seen you without her."

"She's heavily injured. It will take some time for her soul gem to repair the damage done to her body."

"I'm sorry."

Finally, a tiny smile graced Maria's face. "Really, though, that was a rather poorly worded question," she said. "What would you have done if it turned out that she was dead?"

Diana shrugged. "Lots of people have died already, haven't they? We can all handle one more."

Contrary to Diana's expectations, Maria didn't become angry. The smile faded from her face, and all that was left was the depressing resignation of a girl who hated the fact that she understood.

"One last thing. May Huang—was she on one of the downed ships?"

Maria nodded, and Diana clenched her hand, burying the nails into her palm.

"In this city?"

"No. I gathered all the Inquisitional forces that I could to mount this attack. I couldn't find her."

Diana clenched her teeth.

"All right, then. Good-bye, General D'Arco," Diana said, before leaving.

-x-

It took Diana a couple hours of searching the city to find Rebecca and Alexander. She wasn't sure why she put so much effort into locating the two Lyudians. In all likelihood, it was because she knew how much worse everything would be if one of them died—how much more of a farce the entire situation would become, or, rather, how much more of the farce the situation would end up revealing.

After the battle was over, Akira had found the Lyudians where she had programmed the drone to deposit them. Eventually, Akira had gotten them into the city. There had apparently been a great deal of heated shouting involved, but it had obviously worked in the end.

The Inquisition had set up camp in the side alleyways of the city, out of sight. Diana wasn't sure whether or not that mattered much when fighting demons, but it certainly helped when fighting heretics, and Inquisitional doctrine was hard to shake. Maria had been staying in a reinforced tent that looked exactly like all the others. It had taken some time to figure out exactly which tent Rebecca and Alexander were in.

When she entered the tent, Alexander was eating something sticky and white out of a bowl, while Rebecca stared at the ceiling.

"You're alive," Alexander said, setting his bowl down.

Diana sat down on the floor. She had come here looking to see if they were alive, but now that she _was_ here, all she could think about was the image—a little girl's face, twisted in shock and horror as her mother's blood began to soak into her shoes. She didn't even know how the man was related to them—maybe a brother or an uncle, maybe a father. But in all probability, Diana knew that she had let that girl orphan those children.

Alexander and Rebecca shared a look. "Is something wrong?" Alexander asked.

Diana buried her face in her hands. "I'm sorry."

There wasn't a chance in hell that she would tell either of them what had happened. She was still too scared to fully admit to herself what she had done, even though she couldn't entirely deny it. She could've stunned the girl like the Inquisitional agent did, or jumped in front of them and caught the plasma, or fuck, maybe she _should've_ killed her after all—

Then why _didn't she?_

Alexander's brow furrowed. "What happened?"

Diana shook her head.

Rebecca's flat gaze turned towards Diana. "Are you trying to apologize to us, or the Lyudian people?"

Diana wasn't sure.

"You can hardly expect to be able to apologize to the Lyudian people by apologizing to two tiny siblings," Rebecca said. "You probably can't apologize to a people at all."

Diana didn't know how to answer that, although, in all honesty, she wasn't trying very hard in the first place. Fatigue made her eyelids droop down, and she closed her eyes, although her mind remained alert.

After some time, Alexander left without explanation. It bothered Diana that someone like him had been thrust into a situation like this. He didn't deserve it, but then again, by her estimates, nobody deserved what happened to them.

With Alexander gone, Diana had expected the silence between her and Rebecca to be awkward, but a comfortable layer of apathy sheltered the two of them from each other's personalities. They didn't have to pretend that the other didn't exist. Instead, they only had to know that, in the face of the ruined city, their arguments were distant and obscure.

The rustling of the tent flap drew Diana's attention to the door.

"Hey," Akira said. There was hesitation in her smile, something that Diana knew wasn't usually there.

Diana almost smiled back, but the idea that illusions were always better than reality had always seemed to be a cheap, insubstantial thought. She wasn't quite sure what sort of facial expression she was making. The apprehension in her heart was, in all likelihood, reflected in her eyes as well.

"I'm glad you're alive," Diana said, and at the very least, she meant it.

Akira sat down next to Diana. "Yoshio said that he'd be through by tomorrow morning. We'll have to hold out until then."

"What about the Armada?"

"D'Arco sent out scouts to bring them into the city. It's more defensible that way."

Rebecca looked up. "Maria D'Arco?" she asked. "The Inquisitional General?" Both Akira and Diana nodded.

There was fear in Rebecca's eyes when she spoke Maria's name. It struck Diana how many different people Maria D'Arco represented, and she wondered which one, if any could, represented the one that Maria thought herself to be.

"Can we hold this city?" Diana asked. "The Inquisition kinda trashed most of the city's defenses, didn't they?"

"They're more than halfway rebuilt by now," Akira said. "Drone work. There aren't any other Hearth girls, so they had me directing things for a bit. I tried looking for May—"

"She's not here."

"Oh," Akira said. She fidgeted and chewed her lip. "I'm sure she'll be found."

 _That,_ Diana knew, was a lie.

Rebecca was frowning. "So then, Maria D'Arco took this city to harbor the Armada?"

Diana and Akira looked at Rebecca at the same time. There was something heavy in Rebecca's words that weighed both of them down.

"Shit," Diana muttered.

"D'Arco losses are non-negligible," Akira said. "There just aren't enough grief cubes to heal everyone, and corruption has already…"

Akira's eyes glinted with obvious discomfort. "We can't know how bad the Armada had it out there. Either way, D'Arco sacrificed her own girls so that the Armada could stand a better chance at survival inside the city."

Diana could see something teetering on the edge of Rebecca's lips, but she said nothing. There was a familiar apprehension in the Lyudian's expression that shined through her stony features. Diana recognized it as the struggle between good and fear—the knowledge that she _should_ do something fighting against the weakness of the will that prevented her from doing it.

Finally, Rebecca drew something out of her pocket. Whatever it was rustled and clattered as she tossed it into the air. It landed in a pile at Diana's feet.

Her eyes widened as she recognized the black rosary beads. Next to her, Akira had a similarly shocked expression.

"Aren't you supposed to turn me in, now?"

"Yeah," Diana said. She so desperately wanted to draw her bow, but something held her back. By her estimations, it was probably cowardice.

Akira was still staring at the beads. "Those…the Domersek-Nazra wear those?"

Diana felt her hands trembling. "You're one of them. People like them—people like you—"

"I never aided a demon," Rebecca said. "I would never—seeing those things in that field was horrifying enough. Do you think that I would _help_ the things?"

"It doesn't matter!" Diana shouted. Her breathing trembled under the weight of her anger. "There's nothing wrong with being afraid of you people. You _hid_ that from us— _lied_ to us—just like the rest did. You're no different from them."

Rebecca bowed her head. It had been obvious all along that there was something behind the ice, because the ice had only ever really been for her. But Diana couldn't find any warmth inside Rebecca, only a dull, impotent bitterness and regret.

She wondered if she were to dig beneath her own skin and scoop out her own brains, whether or not she would find that same regret.

"The Inquisition breeds fear just as well as we do," Rebecca said. "I couldn't tell you. You would hand me over to the Inquisition, and they would kill me. Maybe torture me first."

Diana curled her lips back, baring her teeth. "It would be justified. I was _there_ when Genesis burned! How many other worlds—"

"I _never helped the demons!"_ Rebecca shouted. "What do you think it's like to see a cause that you've been fighting for, something that you believed in, twisted into something evil? The Domersek-Nazra who never wanted to aid demons felt like we were the only ones left to defend the Lyudian people. The others had lost the way."

There had never been any doubt that Rebecca believed in the words she spoke, grasping them as tightly as she could. Diana wasn't stupid enough to not know that it was just a difference of perspective, but at the same time, those were _dangerous_ beliefs, weren't they? Nobody had ever waged war in the name of the Goddess—at least, not an _unjust_ war.

Akira finally pried her lips back open. "Diana, stop it."

For a moment, Diana briefly considered protesting, but Akira didn't look the slightest bit angry, and once again guilt crept into her heart. She didn't say anything.

"If you're a member of the Domersek-Nazra, you're a heretic," Akira said. "How is it that you never helped the demons?"

Rebecca fidgeted with her hands. "Only the upper echelons of the organization knew about the demons. A few months before the initial attack, several high-ranking clergymen were killed. We thought that it was the Inquisition, but, after the demons attacked, information trickled down. The ones killed had refused to support the demons."

"So you never knew?" Akira asked.

Rebecca shook her head violently. "I swear!"

Diana stared at the beads. She had already let somebody die for this. Was she going to be a hypocrite as well as a coward? She reached down to grab the beads, feeling the cool surface of the lacquered black wood.

"I don't know why you told us this," Diana said. The words felt stronger when she didn't frame them like a question. "Do you _want_ us to throw you to D'Arco? Akira's sympathetic, but even she knows that it's heresy for us to hide you."

When Rebecca looked at Akira, questioning Diana's words, the magical girl looked away. She knew that Diana was right. Silence passed hesitantly by.

Finally, Rebecca spoke. "I am done running. I never wanted to go with you, because I knew that if I went, I would have to hide. Neither of you ever suspected me."

Rebecca turned her head up towards the ceiling. "Cowardice is the second greatest offense a human being can commit against Hashal, after arrogance. It is one thing to be ignorant of one's fate, but to know one's fate and hide from it is the ultimate weakness. I will not be weak."

There was something in those words that made Diana look at Rebecca and feel nothing but hate and contempt. There was something _audacious_ in them, for all she spoke of spurning arrogance, and it dug into Diana's body like a wound that she couldn't help but pick at. She wanted to open her mouth and pick at Rebecca until she would _shut up_ and then, maybe, Diana would find some peace.

But that was the angry, bitter voice in her head, and Diana knew that the other voice, the one telling her that she would _never_ find peace, was probably the smart one. Still, that didn't help quench the dark, ugly fire burning behind Diana's eyes.

Diana threw the beads to the ground. A burst of blue-green magic shot out of her fingertips, consuming the beads.

Diana looked up to see Rebecca staring at her in shock.

"I'm not going to let you martyr yourself for a false god."

Rebecca was beginning to open her mouth, so Diana said, "Don't fucking thank me."

Diana's hands were still trembling and her breathing was only getting shakier, which, by now, Diana knew to be pretty reliable signs that her psyche was about to suffer a momentary collapse.

"Just get out," she muttered. Rebecca scampered for the door, and Diana sank to the floor.

Diana looked up to see Akira standing over her. "That was probably the right thing to do," Akira said.

Diana made an attempt to laugh. She sounded more like she was heaving or crying than laughing, but that was fine. Irony was really not serving Diana very well at the moment, so laughing was pretty pointless. "You really think?" she asked.

"Yeah," Akira said. She was putting effort into her words, which Diana knew meant that interacting with Diana was less of something that was done and more of something that Akira had to do. Her posture sagged, as if the miasma of human suffering that permeated the air had actual physical weight.

"I'm sorry for doing this to you," Diana said. "You should probably give up on me."

Akira shook her head. "I can't do that."

"Sorry for making the presumptuous demand, then." Regret's shadow fell, as always, on her words. They were beginning to lose meaning. Maybe they had already lost meaning, and her ears were only beginning to recognize the burned-out husks of words for what they were.

Akira knelt down beside Diana and pulled her into an embrace. "What's wrong?"

Diana looked at her hands, front and back. "There was a Hierocracy magical girl. And then there was this woman, Lyudian, with two kids. And a corpse."

As she spoke, Diana watched Akira's eyes closely. "The dead man—he had been Domersek-Nazra, and the woman had been hiding her. The Hierocracy girl was going crazy. She kept yelling that the woman was a heretic, and that she needed to be punished. Of course I tried persuading her otherwise."

Akira's eyes moved away from Diana for a moment. Then, they focused back on her. They radiated understanding and comfort, giving Diana a sense of warmth that felt entirely pointless.

"What happened?"

"She said that I would have to kill her if I wanted to stop her," Diana said. "Well, that's bullshit. I could've done a million things besides killing her to stop her. But I didn't. I let her orphan two innocent children right in front of my eyes."

Diana raised her soul gem to her face and regretted every speck of the thing, every point of light, and every hint of darkness. "I'm weak. I'm so weak that I couldn't even save one person, when she was right in front of me. And part of me _wanted_ her to die. Maybe, if I had been that magical girl, I would've killed that woman."

Akira was silent, and her eyes were wide. Then, she said, "I'm sorry."

There were glimmers of pity in Akira's eyes that dug into Diana, presumably into whatever shreds of pride remained inside her.

"I don't know if you made the right choice—"

"Don't bullshit me," Diana snapped. "I fucked up."

Akira looked down, took a deep breath, and continued. "Yeah, you're right. You did."

"Do you hate me for it?" Diana hoped that Akira would say "yes," because Diana deserved it, and because then, Akira wouldn't be disappointed by her anymore.

But then, there was something terrifying about being alone that resonated with the primal recesses of her brain the same way dying did.

"I can't hate you. I mean, I can't say what I would've done in that situation."

"You would've saved her in an instant."

"I don't have the weight of the galaxy bearing me down, day after day. I don't know what I would've done if I were you."

Diana looked upwards. "What?"

"I know you're afraid, Diana," Akira said. "If I had the fate of humanity resting on my shoulders, I'd be scared of getting crushed beneath the weight, and I'd be scared of stumbling, too."

"I've already tripped. Humanity's doomed."

"Why'd you save Rebecca, then?"

Diana bit her lip. "I couldn't take her to D'Arco. I didn't _know_ what else I could do! I had to do something, though. I'm nothing but a hypocrite. That woman died for harboring a heretic, and I _let_ her die, and I do the exact same thing."

Akira shook her head. "You've got it mixed up. That's not hypocrisy, that's atonement."

"Tell that to those two children," Diana said. "Maybe they believed in me. Alexander thought that I would protect Rebecca and him. Maybe he believes in me also."

Diana took a shaky breath. "There's something I still remember—the faces of those people. I was on a ship evacuating Genesis, and I had just contracted. There were people, standing right outside the door, sneaking glances at me, _praying_ to me. Because even if their friends and family were going to die like animals behind them, it was all right, because there was a Servant, and I was going to—I was _meant_ to save people."

She tried to take another breath, but the air caught something and came out as a sob. "I betrayed those children, Akira. Nothing I do will ever atone for that."

"No," Akira said, shaking her head violently. "No! That's not true."

She sounded desperate, and Diana couldn't blame her. It was silly to expect that Akira would be able to snap her fingers and make things right, like she could reach into Diana's head, shuffle thoughts around, and erase of all her insecurities. She was trying to do it, though, trying so hard, and Diana couldn't understand why.

"Look, I believe in you. How could I not? I've always, always believed in you. At first, it was only because you were the Servant, and we were supposed to believe in the Servant. But—I learned to trust you. It—it just—you always try, in that weird, pointlessly cynical way, to make people be optimistic, which might be contradictory but still, I admire that!"

A strand of hair had fallen across Diana's face, and Akira reached forwards to brush it out of the way. Akira was almost mocking her, if unintentionally.

"A smile, or a thought that doesn't even have to be happy, it just has to be about something other than death or pain or despair—that's more valuable to me than anything else right now. I'm just as scared as you, you know. And if I think about the fear too much, it begins to control me."

Diana sniffed, which was embarrassing, but she doubted Akira cared. "I'm sorry," she said, like she had said so many times. "It just…"

But she didn't know what she was going to say.

"Please, at least believe in yourself," Akira said. "I believe in you so much, it just seems stupid for you not to."

"You still believe in me?" Diana asked, trying to capture the way those words had sounded coming from Akira's lips.

"Of course."

Diana was so close to Akira that she wondered if they could superimpose her form over Akira's, and then she could _be_ Akira. Akira believed in her, and Akira wanted her to believe in herself, and if she were Akira, everything would be fine.

She tried to sketch what Akira's face looked like in that moment inside her mind, but she knew that it was like writing letters in the beach's sand, and that someday, she would try to remember the moment, and there would be nothing but static. But she tried anyway, and as she stared at Akira's face, a couple inches away from hers, she realized something. She felt something when she was close to Akira, like she was now. That something wasn't about death, or pain, or despair. It felt as real as the stars affixed in the foundation of the sky, and even if it didn't make her happy, Diana wanted to reach out and clutch at that emotion and—

Diana was not afraid.

She closed her eyes and leaned forwards, which Diana thought was probably the way to signal for a kiss. A moment later, she felt Akira's lips press against her own, and her body lighted up like a candle because the pleasure centers in her brain were firing like artillery and she had this sense that maybe, she wasn't alone, and everything was going to be all right. Her cheeks were wet while Akira's were dry, but that was okay.

After a moment, Akira pulled away. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were wide.

Diana bit back a laugh. "I'm actually not sure how that worked."

"I—I'm not too sure either. I didn't know that you—"

Akira shook her head, cutting herself off. "Well, you did, and that's probably all that matters."

Suddenly, there was noise outside: drones buzzing through the air, magical girls shouting orders. Both of them knew— _we have to go._

Because, after all, in that moment that had lasted forever, the universe had continued to advance, and the Timekeeper watching over everything stopped his watch for very few people.

Diana didn't care—at least, she didn't care as much—even though she knew that the demons were coming, and even though nothing had happened to increase her chances of survival. Everything seemed a little bit more straightforward now, less confusing, and maybe it was because that kiss had let her reorganize the world and her priorities around the things that had become exponentially more important in fractions of a second.

Demons gathered beyond the horizon, led by a being that had dared to seize the power of Death itself. Fear and love danced inside Diana's heart as she went out to meet them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are appreciated. incidentally, this is the first chapter i've posted after the ao3 mirror has "caught up" with the ff.net version. thanks for reading!
> 
> (it wouldn't be a pmmm fic if we didn't have two girls making out. wait, that never happened in the actual show. fanfiction is a silly thing...)


	10. On a Darkling Plain

There was nothing, only silence. The demons had not sent anything before the main force, nothing like the small advance fleet that the Armada had encountered at the fringes of Lyudian space. But there was no calm before the storm. Battles already raged in the hearts and minds of every single _mahou shoujo_ defender, as grief cube supplies ran low, the enemy drew near, and the Goddess seemed a distant, useless thing. They had shuffled around defenses for some time, and then Maria had put them all on stand-by. They had been waiting for hours. Akira had been doing Hearth work the last time she had seen her.

 _It would be simple,_ Diana thought. _I can carry her. The demons won't chase us. We'll fly away and never come back._

She looked up at the sky and wondered what Yoshio was thinking right now. The feeling of disgust that followed contemplations of desertion was so familiar that Diana didn't even bother going through the reasons why she was disgusted at herself again. It was habit at this point. She only wondered if Yoshio wasn't thinking the same things, if he was a good soldier of the Hierocracy, or if he was weak like her.

Akira was far away, and Diana was very tired. On one side of her was death and on the other was dishonor. The only thing left to do was to march on forwards. Maybe then, they would all make it out alive. The lost magical girls, May amongst them, could be found. It was a slim chance, but right now the magical girls had the privilege of knowing that it was only _their_ lives at stake by fighting, and in taking their final stand they would endanger nobody else. At the very least, they wouldn't have to abandon their pride and their hope. _Maybe_ everything would turn out to be a miracle.

Feet crushed the stiff, dead leaves strewn around her. Diana turned around to see Alexander standing above her, his face pale and drawn. "Is there something bothering you?" she asked.

"Rebecca told you."

Diana nodded. "She did. Fair warning; my tolerance for this topic of conversation is extraordinarily low."

"I don't blame you. But I feel that I may soon die within the next day, and the same can be said for you. I also feel that you have treated me and my sister with as much fairness as might be expected, given that you've saved both of our lives before, and now you've spared my sister's."

Diana shivered, but the air was not cold. She was aware how much bravery she really had, and she knew that she would never tell a Lyudian what had happened below the city cathedral. "Right."

"I thought that I would speak to you," Alexander said. "To thank you. And to try to understand you."

Diana waved at the ruined city around them. Everything had been either destroyed or reduced to its bare structure and function, so that all that remained was a fort wearing the carcass of a city around its shoulders. "Understand me? The Hierocracy and the Lyudians have failed to understand each other for more than a century. We think you're terrorists. You think we're tyrants. And now we're both fucked. What makes you think you can reverse the trend?"

Alexander shrugged. "I can try; I can hope. To begin, I'm aware that hope plays a significant role in the lives of most humans living inside the Hierocracy. Maybe you can tell me about that."

"Look around you," Diana said. "Do you see hope here?"

Alexander was silent.

"I don't know what makes you think that I'm a _good_ follower of the Goddess," Diana said. "I never chose. I was chosen."

Diana stared at the ground. "That's Domersek doctrine, isn't it? In a nutshell. None of us ever choose. We're chosen by forces that will always remain outside of our control. We're chosen to inhabit bodies and minds that we may or may not even like. I don't want to be a coward. I'd give anything not to be."

"I'm not here to talk to you as the Servant of the Goddess," Alexander said. "I only wanted to—to—you spared my sister, no? I wanted to understand that."

"Not much to understand," Diana muttered. "I didn't want more blood on my hands. No matter how much she repudiates what the movement's become, your sister shares in the responsibility for the deaths of billions. And one very small part of that responsibility is enough—but fuck it, what does one more rebel scum's corpse on the pile at the end of the day matter?"

Diana shook her head. "The Hierocracy had good reason to begin the eradication of Domersek," she said, avoiding Alexander's eyes.

"That's what they say," Alexander said.

"Humanity is nothing without faith in the Goddess. We're alone in a dangerous universe filled with demons that want to kill us. Domersek opened the door once, and it did it again."

Diana looked up. "Look, I have no faith in the Hierocracy or in the Goddess that it represents. Do you think any of the others ever stopped believing? Do you think Godot could have stopped this stupid fucking clash of civilization of she didn't believe? And before _her,_ all the Servants ever did was build stronger ties between church and state, that now we don't even know what the difference is."

Alexander frowned. "Well, the religious has always been political. We can point to examples even before the Hierocracy…"

"Using historiography that's informed by—look, that's not the _point._ I'm not going to argue academia. A shit lot of good it does you, anyway, when skepticism has you doubt the only path you'll ever know. You're an intelligent guy, Alex. Don't you doubt?"

"I don't like to show it."

"Why not?" Diana asked.

Alexander straightened his back. "I believe in the Lyudian people. I can't deny that most of my people are reactionary, violent, and xenophobic. But I believe in them nonetheless, and I am proud to be one of them, if for no other reason than the fact that they are _my_ people. If we don't have this pride, then what can we be?"

"So ignoring doubt is more like a last-ditch effort than anything else," Diana said.

"Framed in your mind, yes."

There was silence, and Diana was too tired to see it as anything but respite.

"Do you have family, Diana?"

"A mother, a father, and a brother," she said, almost startled at the question. She had forgotten about them when she had entered boarding school.

"You're not very close to them?"

"No."

Alexander scratched the back of his neck. "Oh."

"Were you expecting me to answer differently? Because you're very close to your sister, aren't you?"

"My family and my people," Alexander said, "I would do anything for them."

Alexander was not a very complicated person, Diana thought. He had things figured out. He had rocks to hold on to and goals to pursue. He was aware of some great darkness looming at the peripheries of his vision, but he wasn't that concerned with it. He was a person who could be relied upon. And at least, if he was afraid, he didn't show it, and maybe he could fool himself for some time into thinking that he was not afraid. If Diana's mind was going to be a mystery to herself, the least she could do was make the unpleasant parts mysteries as well.

"You and Rebecca could run," Diana said. "The Inquisition is too busy preparing for battle to care about you two. Run and live."

"If we were to run, then we would either risk death, or cast our lot in with the Domersek-Nazra. The second option is unacceptable. We will stay with you."

"Us?" Diana said. "You'll stay with us, the ones who you see as oppressors and tormentors?"

"We will," Alexander said. "Is it not better to die on your feet than to live on your knees? When Hashal comes, I will stand straight and meet him as an equal."

Diana shrugged. "That's backwards. It should be better to live on your feet than to die on your knees. Philosophy is fun, isn't it?"

"In a certain sense of the word, maybe."

Diana bit her lip. "I don't want to seem like an asshole, but would you mind leaving me alone for a bit?" she asked. "I'm going to see if I can figure out how to die."

Alexander nodded once, turned, and left. When he was out of sight, Diana leaned back against the trunk of a withered tree. The dead leaves around her were the product of this ruined life, death begotten from death. All around her, she could see only the dust settling after disaster. She was in the middle of a desert right now, a plane of sand, and Diana remembered what the water felt like.

She had always had failings, failings which changed when she became a magical girl, but there, as the water hammered the shoreline into gradual oblivion, she was at peace with all her inadequacies and mistakes. Even now when her mistakes were matters of life and death, she wondered if the water would make her feel the same way. There had always been this absurd notion in the back of her mind that a cliff welcomed the pounding of the ocean. It was a slow, rhythmic, steady thing, like being rocked to sleep, and the sound of the waves crashing onto the rock seemed like a gentle sigh of relief more than anything else. The ocean put the rock at peace— _come, sweet death—_ and an eon later there would be nothing more.

When Diana managed to get far away from her planet's major settlements, she could find dunes lining the coastline of the planet's sole continent. Alpha Centauri burned high in the sky, fiery annihilation, and row after row of neatly aligned sandy ridges led to the churning ocean. The sand and the water were so close there, so why couldn't they be here?

Diana shook her head and stood. She could see Inquisitional agents approaching her in the distance, and she knew that she would have to go with them.

-x-

The underground was bright, blindingly so, and very, very dry. There were strips of lighting lining the tunnels, making it such that Diana could hardly find any shadows penetrating the sea of white, while the air seemed to suck all the moisture out of her mouth. Her clothes tingled against her skin, and Diana avoided metallic objects.

Maria's command center comprised of a large whirring slab of machinery projecting a holographic tactical map. She and several of her lieutenants were arrayed around it. As Diana approached the table, a brief ripple went through the Inquisitors, and all of them but Maria filed out. As they left, Diana caught brief glimpses of their expressions—fear and curiosity, combined into some morbid fascination in their supposed salvation.

"Knowing you, you probably want a speedily delivered briefing," Maria said. "We have a report that there is a significantly large contingent of magical girls outside the city walls. They have been under attack by demons ever since they landed on this planet. Many of them are wounded and require immediate evacuation."

Diana's heart beat a little faster. There were a dozen questions she wanted to ask, but she knew that Maria didn't want to play that game. Still, surviving groups outside the cities meant a chance, and that meant hope. "I assume the meeting that I walked in on was deciding what to do about them."

"We decided that we could not send them any supplies. It would be far too risky," Maria said, "and those supplies are better served in here, where they'll defend wounded magical girls who still have a chance to live inside these walls, as opposed to wounded magical girls out there who are doomed to die."

"So we're at the level where we're making those kinds of decisions, are we?"

"This is only business as usual."

"Fuckyour business as usual," Diana said, anger lighting tiny sparks across the surface of her face's resignation. Ordinarily, Diana was sure that she would just say the words to remind herself that there were some things that she did not agree with, but now, there was something more at stake. "We have to do something about them. Those are your girls, D'Arco."

Maria's expression darkened. "You dare suggest that I would abandon my soldiers?"

"Look, just cut the bullshit and tell me your plan. You said that you knew I wanted it quickly."

There were implicit apologies in the way animosity, a mask that did not stick, fell away from both girls' faces.

"We may as well press the advantages we've paid for in taking this city," Maria said. "We have access to the tunnels now. Those girls might well be worse-off than us now, but when the demons come, and all of them will come, there will be a short window of opportunity. The tunnels are very extensive. We send one messenger there to let them know what our plan is. Then, we'll use the tunnels to evacuate this city. They rendezvous with the group outside. The best case scenario is that we fight off the demons, the Rear Admiral breaks through tomorrow morning, and he evacuates both groups. But even if we cannot fight off the demons, at the very least we'll be able to get some people off the planet with this plan, because the Rear Admiral can evacuate the group outside the city while the demons' attention is distracted."

"So who evacuates?" Diana asked.

"There were civilians inside this city when we attacked. They have first priority."

"Obviously."

"Then the wounded, who would contribute nothing to battle. Then high value figures."

Diana made it perfectly clear, through her complete lack of reaction, that she knew exactly what Maria was talking about. "Those being?"

"I had several of my best agents working on this planet, and I'm not having the cream of the Inquisition be wiped out in one battle. The same goes for the Armada officers."

"I'm sure they resisted. Who would want to be a coward before the eyes of the Goddess? We can't serve her if we run away."

Maria raised an eyebrow. "You've never spoken so strongly about this before."

"You haven't spoken to me very much."

"And you seem like the kind of peculiar person who doesn't care as much as you should. So why start now?"

Diana rolled her eyes. "I always cared. I was an irreverent little shithead and I didn't have many friends for it, but only the most audacious shitheads won't hold onto the Goddess of Hope in times of despair. You think I'm different?"

Maria sighed, and then straightened her back. "You have to leave, Diana. If you truly want to serve the Goddess."

"I want you to think long and hard, D'Arco," Diana said. "Use that wonderful Inquisitor brain of yours before you open your mouth again. Can you conceive of any scenario in which I leave this city?"

"You completely ignored what I said. How many more people will die in this war if you are not alive to fight it?"

Diana shook her head. "I'm not some fucking trump card. The Hierocracy has forgotten its true enemies. You think that the drones or the machines of the Hierocracy can hold off the enemy, and if that doesn't work, _then_ we can look to our Servant. That's not how it fucking works. We are fighting despair itself—if you read our history, you know we've _always_ been fighting nothing but despair—and a plasma cannon isn't going to do shit. The demons will only be held back if we hold the line and give exactly what we can afford to give and _nothing_ more."

The dazzling light of the tunnel pressed down upon Diana. "We've all had a taste of war on this planet. And now…"

Now, Diana knew that if she were allowed the opportunity to run once, she would take that chance again and again. Even if there were good enough short-term reasons as to why she had to run, in the long term she knew that she would become a coward through and through, instead of just the closet coward she was now. She was being suffocated by war, and she was sure that, even if she had no faith left to spare, she had to stay by the Goddess to get air, which meant never taking a step back.

Maria's lips pressed together. "That's all very well and good, but you will have to explain to me in more concrete terms why I should let you stay."

Diana wanted to shout at her, and maybe that would make her understand. She had a fate, something she was doomed to struggle against, to cower in terror of, for the rest of her life. Her fate was death, horrifying in its all-encompassing enormity. She _had to stay._ She knew this with complete certainty. If she were to run, there would be something violently carved out of her identity, something destroyed. Diana knew the old, old myths, of people who were doomed by higher powers to gruesome punishments. But what would Sisyphus do if his rock were taken away from him? Who was _she_ without the fight?

"Use your precognition," Diana said. "I want you to do it. If you see me go, then I'll go. But if you see me stay, then I'll stay. I know that it isn't my fate to go, but shit, I might be wrong. So why don't you find out yourself?"

"Using my powers will take energy that we don't have for issues like this," Maria said. "Why should I waste whatever little fuel we have left, when I only need to wait for you to come to your senses and leave?"

"Because you said that you were willing to let me know how this ends," Diana said. "I don't want to know the end. There's an unimaginable difference between living and dying, but for me, even greater than that is the difference between fighting and not. You don't get it. _I_ don't get it. But you don't have to look to the end. Just look forwards ten stupid minutes and see if I'm still in this city."

Diana realized that she probably looked and sounded like she was losing her grip on reality, but she knew this with a dreadful certainty, and if this is what it took for Maria to know it as well, then that was fine. There was blood on her hands now, blood of an innocent mother that bound her to this planet—to either save it or die on it. There was the blood of an innocent world where she could be cynical about the Hierocracy because she truly believed that it was fundamentally righteous and just, but now the cynicism was like drinking poison and expecting to laugh because of it. It was just stupid.

Maria's face clenched. It was very different from her ordinary expression, but there was quite clearly the same person underneath it, which made Diana vaguely uncomfortable. Then again, she wondered if she was making people uncomfortable in the same way.

"You really want me to do it?"

How much did Diana _really_ know what her destiny was, though? What if Maria looked into her future and saw her running? Then she would have to run.

Diana didn't entertain any delusions that she could in some way alter what Maria would see. If Maria saw her run, then she couldn't decide to flippantly defy fate and choose to stay. She remembered what it had been like to be beaten down by that archdemon. When her hands held the power of the Goddess, she had still been outmatched by the world. If her will held only the hands of a normal human being, then what could possibly make her think that she could fight the will of time?

Her soul was a rock—a _rock,_ made up of the same matter as everything else in the universe. She could touch it and feel it and bounce it off the ground, just the same as a rock that _wasn't_ her soul. There was nothing special about the human soul, and nothing special about the human will. Everything was part of the same machinery.

"Would it help if I said 'please,' D'Arco? Yes, I want you to do it."

D'Arco's eyes glowed white for a split second. Then, her shoulders sagged.

"You stay."

"Pleasure doing business," Diana said. "You know if May Huang is among those survivors?"

"I don't know. You know—"

"There are others. Of course I know." Maria's lip curled slightly at the interruption.

Diana sighed. "I have one request. It'll help us both."

Diana wasn't at all sure if the choice she was about to make was well-informed, or even fundamentally respectful, but she was going to do it anyway. It seemed like a good idea, and that was enough for her.

"You know Tanaka Akira?"

"The Hearth engineer, yes."

Diana clenched her hands, took a breath, and then spoke. "Send her to lead the evacuation. Obviously they will have vital equipment that is in need of repairs. An expert engineer will be useful."

Maria raised her eyebrows. "I didn't expect that you'd be capable of this."

"Watch me."

"Will you at least talk to her?"

 _You're afraid,_ Diana told herself. Out loud, she said, "I will if I can."

"Good. I'll send the appropriate orders," Maria said.

The two girls' eyes met, crossing on the border of apprehension. What had been done on this planet bound them together. Diana saw before _her_ the leader of a force more sinister and troubled than she had expected, and Maria saw before _her_ the representative of a divine will more human than was convenient. But more than that, they knew that there would always be a part of themselves that the other would understand, whether or not they liked it. And Diana probably _didn't_ like it. She really only wanted to be this naked before a select number of people, and Maria was not one of them.

But Diana wasn't without her own personal victories as well. She would see that smiling face in crowds and know exactly how much of it was a lie. She would know that Maria, just like everyone else, was only trying to survive. And for all the confidence in the world, when it came time to fight, only competency mattered.

"Did you want to say something?" Maria asked.

Diana slowly shook her head.

"Then go."

-x-

Diana hadn't been able to find Akira. She must have been sent to aid evacuation around noon, and now the sun was falling, casting streaks of blood across the horizon. The light filtered in through shattered windows, casting the cathedral in a jagged, crimson glow. It was the same cathedral that had served as the heretic stronghold.

The original artist must have used scaffolding of some sort to build the now-ruined mosaic, but Diana could fly. One of her wings was bent under her arm, carrying an assortment of colored pebbles and tools. There was extensive damage to the mosaic, but Diana was fairly confident that she could fix it. She had experimented with some mosaic forms at school. The Hierocracy sponsored most religious form of art expression, although, granted, it was hard to find art that didn't have _some_ religious themes. Really, all Diana had learned from the experience was that copying the _Freude_ was really cliché, which had earned frowns from her supervisor—but still. It was true.

The mosaic was dominated by a central image of a magical girl, bent down on one knee, face hidden and turned skywards. All _Freude_ rip-offs were like that. An endless battlefield surrounded the girl, littered with dead and dying bodies twisted in grotesque, disturbing poses. The girl clutched a pale, bloodied hand, whose owner could not be seen.

In the sky, two white wings sprouted down from the heavens. The rest of the mosaic was bleak and dark—this was the only source of light. But the damage to the mosaic had mostly erased the wings.

There was some deviation from the original _Freude_ , to be fair. The girl's dress took some cues from Lyudian clothing, and the poses were refined from the original abstractions to a more realist interpretation, but really, what could be said about this piece from an artistic standpoint but that it was yet another derivation?

Diana knew that she barely had any time to work on the mosaic. All she had managed to do was carefully reconstruct the girl's expression of unadulterated happiness and joy. But there was still so much to be done. How would she reconstruct the wings?

Behind Diana, two Inquisitional agents were quite obviously engaged in telepathic conversation. Still facing the mosaic, Diana said, "I would've thought that Inquisitors could hide when they're speaking behind somebody's back."

Both girls flushed, before quickly sweeping into subservient kneeling positions. Diana frowned. "Please don't do that."

"Forgive us."

"You're forgiven."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I like art. Is that punishable under Inquisitional code now?"

The two agents fell into an uncomfortable silence. Diana supposed that if she were a more approachable religious figure, it would be easier talking to people who didn't already know her. But as it was, she would never see these people again, in all likelihood, and any one of them might be dead by tomorrow morning. And they would all be dead if Yoshio couldn't break through.

Diana sighed. "What do you think the Lyudians put into this planet?"

"Put...into?"

"For every radical, for every heretic, there's an honest Lyudian who just wants to live life like the rest of us. Who wants _hope_ just like any other follower of the Goddess. Who is surrounded by darkness like any other human being. What is this planet to them? What's the motto of the Fleet of Hope?"

" _Terra invicta."_

"But there's no _Rackba invicta,_ is there? This planet's fucked either way. We stay, it's fucked. We leave, it's fucked. It's going to burn. There is nothing, nothing we can do to save its people. All we've been thinking about this whole time is saving the Armada, getting the Inquisitors who were trapped on this planet out. This is when you know we're desperate—when the shield that guards humanity has to abandon it just to survive."

Diana passed a hand across the mosaic. "I was on Genesis, you know. And sometimes, I wonder if I could have left something behind on that planet to burn with the rest of it. Now, this time, I have the chance."

Alarms sounded throughout the city. They heralded one message: _Battle stations. They are coming._

Diana landed softly on the floor. The two Inquisitors' eyes were fixed on her as she moved towards the cathedral's door. "Don't you have a job to do?" Diana asked.

"General D'Arco just wanted us to make sure you weren't doing anything foolish."

Diana, who had passed the agents, glanced behind her and gave them a flat stare. "Honestly, that's kind of insulting."

One agent looked vaguely embarrassed, but the other only shrugged. "Orders are orders," she said. "And I wouldn't put it past you."

Diana raised an eyebrow at the girl. Her dark skin meant that she was probably either Terran or from one of the Sol colonies. She could read absolutely nothing from the girls' expression.

"I don't know you."

She shrugged again. "That's fine."

Diana laughed. It was a strange thing to do, because of all the irony and absurdity that surrounded her nothing had made her laugh, but this situation, which by all accounts was not at all humorous, did.

"May the Goddess be with you," the girls said, a solemn proclamation that meant absolutely nothing. Out of any of them, the Goddess was with Diana the most, and all of them knew it.

"Yeah, you too," Diana said, before beating her wings and taking to the air.

No thoughts of battle crossed Diana's mind. Instead, she thought about Akira. If she had found her, what could she possibly say to her? Sending her away had been an act of pure selfishness, done to ensure her survival. Even if Diana died here, then Akira would live. But in death, Diana would still be running away from Akira—scared to fail her until the very end.

What could she have said? "I'm sorry; I love you?" Out of all the falsehoods and lies that she could say, that would indeed be the one with the most truth, wouldn't it? If she were to ever see Akira again, would she be forgiven? In all honesty, she probably would be. But Diana didn't know how she could ever remove the thorn she had driven between them—and she had only kissed her, what, half a day ago?

Akira was courage. Akira was what it meant to not be afraid. Diana knew, with the same certainty that she had known her destiny, that she could not afford to lose that. But if she had not sent her away, then she would be here right now, beside her, and Diana would know what it would mean to not be afraid. They would stand together, for one instant in time, flanked and hemmed in by the turmoil and uncertainty of the past and future.

She was nothing without Akira anyway. The Armada girls had asked for her, but they had gotten Maria D'Arco instead, Maria D'Arco with her city, and now Maria D'Arco with her evacuation. She was the true savior. Diana could only provide firepower.

Diana looked up at the fading sky and imagined that she was holding the crushing weight of loneliness on her shoulders. Atlas stood alone, didn't he? Something miraculous had been hidden in that moment when she looked into Akira's eyes, but now it was gone with Akira. Diana had cast Akira back into the stars, and she had kept something of herself down on this planet, so she was stretched out, like a rope from the heavens down to earth. She was trying to keep herself tethered to something meaningful, but she still felt nothing but loneliness.

She wanted to see Yoshio again, in his red-and-white robes, who she remembered curled up like a porcupine in the starport at Genesis. She wanted to see Christine again, and entertain the fantasy that there were heroes like Arthur's knights that now walked the stars. She wanted to see May again, and embrace the steel and warmth that was inside her. She wanted to see Akira _one more time,_ and remember the soft feel of her lips, the silky tickling feeling of her jet-black hair as it rubbed against her face, the enormity of the presence that her miniscule hand made against her own. She wanted to not fear, _one more time, one more time,_ just like she had _wished._ Wasn't this part of the contract?

Diana did not land softly. An imaginary glass dome covered the battlefield before first blood was drawn, and Diana wanted to smash right through. She dashed through the mass of demons that were descending upon the city, shooting everything that she saw, sweeping aside giant mobs of enemies with her wings. Her soul gem glowed brightly in the night. The howling of Reaper drones and the hum of laser fire rang in Diana's ears, and streaks of light flashing overhead burned themselves into her eyes.

Battle washed away the doubts and replaced it with panic and desperation and anger, a primal fear instead of a rooted one. Diana resolved that if she was going to die here, then she would at least kill as many demons as she could.

-x-

 _Decay takes us all, little girl,_ the demon said. _You put in more than what you get out. It's thermodynamics._

Diana rooted through debris, hands tingling in the dissipating miasma. She had four grief cubes that hadn't dissipated, four out of at least twenty that should have been yielded. Now, she was just trying to find the demons that had died hidden in the cracks and under rocks. To her left, a demon was pinned by one of her arrows to the side of a ruined building. Its form was beginning to flicker and dim. Diana did not want to spare the effort to kill the thing. She still wasn't sure which demons were sapient and which were not, or whether or not it mattered.

"If you guys know that so well, you'd fear death, wouldn't you?"

 _Of course we don't. We_ are _death._

Diana flipped over a piece of rubble and felt a tiny jolt of excitement at the grief cubes hidden underneath. A few were dissipating already, but three remained very solid, their black surfaces shining invitingly. Diana manifested her soul gem and tossed it into the pile, watching as the darkness drained away.

"Where's your leader?" Diana asked. "He should be here."

_Now, why would I tell you that?_

"Good point. You wouldn't want to die aiding the enemy, would you?"

The demon growled. _Why do you ask about the harbinger of your demise? Do you not fear death?_

"Of course I do," Diana said. Her voice was quiet and level.

 _Then despair, for he_ is _coming, and nothing you humans can do will possibly stop him._

Now, Diana's soul gem glowed with a healthy light. With a flash, it re-appeared back in the clasp at her shoulder. Diana turned around, walked two steps to meet the demon, and stared into the horrid surface of its face.

"You don't fear death?" she said. "I don't believe it." With one fluid motion, Diana yanked the arrow out of its chest and speared it straight back into its head.

The demons' initial push forwards had been repelled. Diana didn't know how many were dead. She had taken the opportunity presented by the lull in the fighting to gather grief cubes when she had found the demon trapped to the wall. She didn't even remember firing that arrow.

A voice above Diana shouted out, "Hey!" Diana craned her neck upwards to find the source of the voice. A group of magical girls who had been rooftop-hopping across the city had stopped to address her.

"What?"

"We're pulling back. Didn't you see the flares?"

Diana took a few moments to reflect on the absurdity of it all—under the demon miasma, they were still reduced to finding ways to communicate that didn't involve telepathy or communications devices. It was small and stupid, and Diana found it, in that one moment, worse than everything else. It was worse than the death, the despair, and the demons. It was worse than the future hidden inside the rocks of this planet—that everything would burn. They were using fucking flares, and Diana wanted to leave.

Diana flew onto the rooftop. There was fatigue in the girls' faces, but worst of all, there was hope when they saw Diana approach them. Disgust swilled within Diana's stomach. That was the hope of a century long gone, when people like Akemi Homura could make a girl believe that there was something worth fighting for, no matter what. Diana was not that person. She looked at the girls with the eyes of the starving peeking into a banquet party. Then, without saying anything, Diana spread her wings and took off.

The defensive perimeter of the Inquisition's line was comprised of automated plasma turrets, snipers both contracted and not, as well as a healthy complement of drones hidden in tunnels and hollow buildings. Behind the perimeter, the magical girls not engaged in active combat against the demons hid. The perimeter provided reasonably adequate protection against the forces that the demons had thus far sent, but several other perimeters behind this one had been prepared in the event that the Inquisition needed to fall back.

A few heads turned as the Servant landed in the midst of the camp, sparking small, transient fires in their hearts. But there was work to be done, a battle to fight, and a cold death in the future to walk towards, so the fire was quickly forgotten.

Diana's eyes caught something of note—a familiar figure, hunched over something in a dark, distant corner of the Inquisitional camp. A few other magical girls were standing completely still some distance away, far enough to give some semblance of respect.

When she heard Diana approaching, Rebecca turned around, made brief eye contact, and then hastily looked away. It was too obvious. Diana quickened her footsteps, and then halted abruptly when she saw what Rebecca was huddled over. There was a magical girl, lying there in the dirt, her costume torn, her limbs broken, and the soul gem on her wrist slowly fading.

Diana turned around and caught the attention of the first Inquisitor she saw. "What happened here?"

"She was the only person in her squad to survive," the Inquisitor said.

"And why's she out here?"

"She didn't want grief cubes. Even if she did, we don't have enough. Nor do we have enough room—"

"To give her any dignity in death? What the fuck is this?" Diana asked, stepping forwards.

The Inquisitor flinched, bit her lip, but held her ground. "We don't—she was a comrade and sister of the Inquisition. If we could possibly spare anything to preserve the pride of this organization, do you think we would hold anything back?"

Diana felt her right arm trembling, so she shoved it behind her back and clamped onto it with her left arm. She turned around to look at something that wasn't the agent, but the dying magical girl was on the other side. Diana realized, her eyes widening slightly, that the girl was Lyudian.

 _A comrade and sister of the Inquisition._ It was a joke. There was no organization filled with more contradictions than the Inquisition of the Hierocracy.

The Inquisitor next to Diana gasped softly. In that dark, distant corner, the fading light had gone out. Rebecca stood slowly, her head bowed, before walking away.

"Who was she?" Diana asked.

Rebecca shook her head. "She was Lyudian. A Domerseka, a follower of Hashal, who took up arms and decided to fight for the Hierocracy's Goddess."

"What's your point? Are you saying that it's a waste to martyr yourself for the Goddess?"

Rebecca narrowed her eyes at Diana. "No, I'm not."

"Then what are you?"

"Our two civilizations aren't supposed to be compatible. I do not understand how she served the Goddess."

"That's stupid. The people of the Hierocracy and the Lyudian people all came from Earth."

Rebecca snorted. "That happened _centuries_ ago."

"And? Does the passage of time mean that we need to be locked in some sort of great battle to determine the course of history? The Goddess is Hope, and Hashal is Death. The universe is nothing but a giant, blobby, disorganized mess of those two things. Why not believe in both?"

Diana had seen recognition alight upon people's faces before, and what she saw in Rebecca looked absolutely nothing like that. She looked troubled and confused and exhausted, and there was no room for understanding there. There probably wasn't any room for understanding in Diana either.

The sky was beginning to darken. Diana sighed. "Look, what does it mean to be Lyudian, anyway?"

After a moment, Rebecca made steady eye contact with Diana. "To submit to exactly two things—Hashal, and the hands of time. All else is to be struggled against."

"Like the Hierocracy."

"Yes."

"Look, then we're not so different," Diana said. "Because what it means to worship the Goddess is to struggle against _everything._ Your death, your despair, all your enemies—you can never, ever, submit. But see, the real thing that makes us the same, is that we're both gonna lose."

"So that's your view on that girl over there," Rebecca said. "She lost."

"Nothing wrong with it if everybody does it."

Rebecca scowled some more, opened her mouth, but didn't say anything. The two of them walked on in silence for a bit, as curious magical girls spared inconsequential moments of their time to glance at them. Either one of them could have peeled away from the other, but there was a sort of awful intimacy between them now. They could see inside each other's veils of secrecy.

Diana suddenly stopped. If she had to describe it later, it had been like when she was in front of Maria, and she had _known_ her destiny. Now, she felt something pulling her inexorably forwards. She looked at the horizon, just as light flashed and chaos erupted.

Diana's magically enhanced vision let her see that there was a white figure in the distance, hovering high above the ground. Methodically, it blasted apart the defenses of the Inquisition's position. Drones and magical girls were cut down like flies in desperate attempts to halt its advance. It was obvious that the perimeter was hopelessly breached, and already, across the city, magical girls were falling back.

Next to her, Rebecca was white-faced and wide-eyed. Her footing slipped as she trembled uncontrollably. But then, resolve entered like a drug into Rebecca's bloodstream, and her figure regained its solidity. Diana did not tremble. Instead, she felt a weight all over her body, and she could not summon the willpower to move with that weight holding her down. Every step she took was one step closer, closer to that thing dragging her forwards, when she wanted to dig in her heels and stay, run away, like all the others who were falling back.

But she knew why she was pulled forwards. She had to serve. She had to atone. She had to fight. Diana felt the struggle drain out of her. She turned to Rebecca and said, in a low, level voice, "You need to find your brother."

Rebecca nodded, and then scrambled off. An instant later, in a burst of light and sound, Diana launched herself towards the figure in the distance. She loosed an arrow, which the archdemon lazily batted aside with a laser.

_Back again, Servant? I don't see why you keep coming for more._

Diana dodged to one side as a laser swept past her, and then charged straight for the archdemon. Now, seeing it for a second time, Diana realized that the archdemon's humanoid form was one of the most disturbing things about it. All the other demons' proportions were off, but this one could be mistaken as a human being. It was just a monk, garbed in clean white robes, with a twisted mess for a face, and an awful light emanating from where it would have eyes.

Diana executed what was by now a well-practiced move: in one fluid motion, she grabbed an arrow from her quiver and then struck for the side of the archdemon's neck. The archdemon darted out with its hand, caught Diana's wrist, and then tossed her towards the ground. Diana spread her wings a half second before she hit, and then sped out of the way as the archdemon came crashing down onto her.

She could only hold her ground for a few second at a time, until she was pushed back, slowly and steadily. For every arrow she fired, the demon had a reply. For every trick she tried, the archdemon brushed it aside almost casually.

_Look, surrendering would be easier, wouldn't it?_

Diana let her desperation loose from her lungs and belted out a guttural scream. In reply, the archdemon sped towards her. She fired once; it dodged out of the way, and then it was onto her. Before, Diana had turned and flew away. This time, she held her ground. She swung out with her bow, using it as a club, infusing it with all the magic she could. It shattered against the archdemon's robes. Yelling again, she lashed out with her fists, only to be beaten back.

_Hope is a life of struggle and hardship. You'll either make it out or you won't, but if you always hope that you will, you'll be disappointed in the very end. Why not let go? Why not see what your destiny is and just accept it?_

Diana repeated her own words to herself: _struggle against everything_. Those words ran through her mind as the demon slammed into her, again and again, like pounding onto a pane of glass until it was crisscrossed with fractures and about to explode.

And then, the demon stopped. _Why not run? Aren't you afraid of death? This can't end any other way. There are beings more powerful than your Goddess, so even if you represent her, you can't beat me. You might run for a little while, though._

Diana summoned a new bow, notched an arrow, and then aimed point blank at the demon.

What happened next was an absurdity. Throughout the military history of the Hierocracy, many battlefield plans of questionable soundness had been attempted, and few of them had been successful. These few were examined in aristocratic military academies and dissected to see if they could be replicated. From stalling tactics from garrison fleets against stolen rebel battleships, to desperate attempts to break the defenses of demon-held regions on Earth, faith in the Goddess prompted many the fanatical soldier to resort to insanity.

At some point in human history, people stopped knowing how their transportation worked. Thus, engineering became an occupation. At that moment, nobody on the planet Rackba could tell you how an FTL engine on a ruined cruiser worked, except for one person. That one person could tell you that even if everything else on a battleship was trashed, if the FTL engine was intact, and if an instant of propulsion could be achieved, then that engine could bust through the fabric of space and time for that instant. It would be a feat of unthinkable precision and finesse to somehow control where the cruiser emerged, but theoretically, it could be done.

In the distance, engines began to hum. Light burst across the horizon, the brightest star in the oncoming night, and then a cruiser appeared right above the demon forces. Colored light streamed from the cruiser in all directions, a brilliant display of radiance, and then suddenly the demons were not pushing forwards so quickly anymore. Across the city, aided by the element of surprise, magical girls dropped down from the cruiser and began to rain fire on the demons. Drones emerged from the cruiser and streaked across the city, enveloping the demons in a new barrage of plasma.

The cruiser was falling rapidly, but one final burst of its propulsion sent the massive cylinder careening out of the way of its payload. Diana and the archdemon had fought their way to an isolated corner of the city. The cruiser was coming straight for them.

The archdemon raised an arm to bat the incoming starship out of the sky. As it was distracted, Diana released her arrow. It hit the demon straight in the chest, blowing it backwards through a building, and then pinning it to a wall on the other side. Then she spread her wings and flew away as fast as she could.

Behind her, the cruiser hit the city. It was a five-hundred meter long cylinder of burning metal, failing propulsion systems, and improvised kinetic weaponry. It flattened two city blocks when it hit in a deafening scream of impact. The shockwave swept over Diana, but she was too busy flying away to pay it much attention.

When she was far enough away to stop and look behind her, Diana saw only fire and the ruined remains of the cruiser scattered across the city. Then, a voice spoke in Diana's mind. It said, _Keep running, Servant of the Goddess. I'll catch up later._

Diana turned around and flew.

_This is Maria D'Arco, addressing all magical girls in the area. Pull back immediately._

It seemed that telepathy was functional again, at least for a little while. Then, a new voice spoke in Diana's mind, and her heart leapt— _Demons are retreating, General D'Arco. We are fresh. We can pursue._

_Withdraw, Sergeant Huang. If you overextend, then you'll be wiped out. We are in no position to support you right now._

_Wait,_ Diana said. _That archdemon's down for the moment. If we want to reestablish any sort of perimeter, we have to do it now._

A murmur of telepathic chatter went through Diana's mind at the news, most of it asking the question: _What happened?_

_Cruiser fell on it._

Maria's voice cut off any further idle speech. _Sergeant Huang, I presume that you are in command of the reinforcements?_

_Correct._

_You have permission to advance. Take with you only those who are necessary._

_Orders understood, general._

Diana flew on. She wondered, for a moment, what happened to those moves that combined tactical genius and sheer luck that never managed to change the outcome in the end. What had happened now was undoubtedly a miracle, but centuries in the future, would historians look upon this day and call it the Miracle at Rackba, or was it just the struggling and twitching of a dying army that refused to go gently and neatly?

That was the choice, wasn't it? To go gently, or to make a mess, to spill blood, to see your guts dangling out in front of you, to watch your soul gem darken and fade as despair seeped into every single crevasse of your mind, and then to die, ignominiously, forgotten, dust-bitten. It was to do that, or to go gently—or maybe to live.

Maybe they would look back and call it a miracle after all.

-x-

Diana was cornered in the open. There was nobody around her, nobody to judge, only herself and Akira, standing before her. She was trapped by their privacy—because there were things even Akira wouldn't say in public. It just wasn't very neat. It wasn't clean. It didn't allow for a complete purging of the mind.

Akira was shorter than her, but Diana was slouching, so they stood eye to eye. Shame was fear's aftertaste, it was the lining, and it tasted just as bitter as the main dish. The texture was different, though. This created a thick sludge in her veins, made her feel like she couldn't move, blotting out the thoughts in her mind. Diana wanted to run away, but in this case it was more like _dissolve_ away. Her boundaries would fall apart and then the sludge would pour out of her. All that would be left would be the shame.

"I'm sorry," Diana said.

Akira had a familiar face. Her father had worn that face when her brother had back-talked, yelled at him once. She had never paid much attention to either of them, but that face was burned in her mind. One of the girls at school had worn that face when Diana muttered something about her intelligence a little too loudly under her breath back when she was thirteen. The others had laughed, anyway.

It was a familiar face. Akira asked, "Why?"

Then, before Diana could answer, she said, "This is stupid, I know why. You wouldn't ask a question you already knew the answer to, would you? You wanted to keep me safe."

Diana nodded.

"I felt so useless," Akira said. "Like you didn't need me. And honestly, why would you need me? I'm just—"

"Akira, you just saved my fucking life. I'm an idiot. I should never have…"

Drones screamed overhead. The sky was completely black now, and the only light came from the dim glow of the stars and the warm embrace of the burning city. This was _the_ lull in the fighting, the lull when both sides retreated for a few minutes, and people desperately searched for one last meaningful thing to do before committing themselves once more to the half-death of uncertain survival. Diana and Akira were in a narrow alleyway, and in that moment Diana could not choose a more claustrophobic place in the entire galaxy.

"No," Akira said. "No! I didn't want to be protected! Why—why didn't you even _ask_ me? Or _tell_ me? Or find me?"

"I—"

Diana wanted to say, "I tried," but suddenly the enormity of that statement's uselessness crashed down upon her. It gathered inside her and became more sludge. She couldn't say anything that could even pretend to be half-useful.

"I don't know."

"You don't…you don't—what does that even mean?"

Diana realized that if she wanted anything she would have to beg for it and that she _would_ beg for it. She was going out soon. They were all going to go out soon. And if they went out with no sense of closure then death would almost be preferable. She felt sick with desperation and frustration. For all it mattered, she was as good as dead when she went out. There was yet another precipice in front of her, yet another open expanse of black glittering sky stretched out before her, but this time it was not hers to explore. She was its to engulf. Diana looked into Akira's face and felt herself sinking into it.

Akira leaned forwards and kissed Diana. There was that rush again. Diana felt it dull and dim against her own uselessness. When they separated, she could see Akira searching her expression for _something_ , something that she knew she could not provide. It had been only fourteen or fifteen hours and already she was failing Akira.

"So if I fuck up, you'll still humor me?" _Feed me?_

The frustration in Akira's face deepened. "I—why do you have to be like that now?"

Diana' smile was one of the worst she had ever made. It was disgustingly bad, but she found herself making it nonetheless. Aesthetically speaking it was just the same smile it had always been, but this time, _this time_ , more so than all the other times, there was nothing funny. "Everything's just so absurd," was all she could say.

"Please don't get existential on me."

"I wasn't planning on it," Diana said.

Akira's frustration was beginning to waver. For an instant, her frustration collapsed, and there was that same face she had worn in the beginning. "I told you, I'm afraid too. Right?"

"I know."

"Then please, don't wave a hand and have me led out of your life," Akira said. "I don't…"

Akira's voice fell to little more than a whisper. "I had a dream where I died alone on this planet."

These were the final nails of failure in Diana's coffin. Just then, flares shot out across the city. The magical girls were launching their final stand. Clouds rolled over the endless night and the shining moon.

"It won't happen," Diana said. "Whatever happens, we'll go together. I promise."

Diana looked at Akira and realized that she was looking into a mirror. There was the same desperation there. She had betrayed Akira, and now Akira would do anything to have the security she had once enjoyed, to have the knowledge that Diana would not do it again. But nothing could provide that assurance, nothing except time and fading memories, or else an abrupt death and a moot question.

Akira was shaking. "I don't want to die useless. If I can have anything, just one thing, I want to die in the service of something greater. The Goddess. My sisters. _You."_

"We already got our one thing, didn't we?"

Once again, Diana remembered the faces of the people on the ship fleeing Genesis, as they looked to her, prayed to her. Akira had that same face right now. Diana wanted to say, _I_ can't grant you any wishes.

Akira shook her head. "I was an idiot. I wished…there was this stupid kink in the most recent generation of FTL engines, and nobody could figure it out. So I wished that I could. What was I _thinking?_ That wish didn't even matter then; all I really wanted was to be a magical girl, to be closer to the Goddess. I just don't want—I don't want to die alone or run away."

"No," Diana said. "You won't. I—"

She refused to contemplate the possibility.

"I won't let it happen."

Diana looked at the fading trails of the flares. "I need to fight that archdemon. Alone."

Akira winced. "This time, I can't do anything to help you, can I?"

"They need you somewhere else. Look, that's not the point. If I die, then this city might not fall. Yoshio could make it in time. I just need to give you guys a chance, make sure that…that I have a meaningful death too. I can ask for that too, right?"

Diana felt the tiny warmth of Akira's hand against your own. "Please, don't say that."

"I'm not going out there because I want to. I'm going out there because I can't stand thinking that, if I run, you'll die. We could run away, together, but both of us know that we can't. In this battle, we're going to be separated. We can't easily communicate. So…so just know that—"

Akira nodded and gripped Diana's hand.

"I have to go," Diana said. She slipped her fingers out of Akira's own, felt as the warmth fell away from her skin. Then, she took flight.

-x-

The Servant fought on top of a cathedral. A short distance away from her, a coiled snake watched with eyes so oily black they seemed in danger of catching fire if there were a spark. Around the snake and the Servant, two armies waged war, not to decide the fate of a planet, which was doomed, or even to fight for the Goddess above, who in that moment seemed to be either very secure in comparison from the forces that now assailed humanity, or else as vulnerable and weak as the rest of them. The snake knew that in the hearts of humanity the most primal flame of survival sparked, flaring in the wind, struggling desperately not to be blown out. It had watched, centuries ago, as that flame had burned into an inferno of hope and burned Earth to ashes. That was the Hierocracy—a civilization born out of the blackened wreck of what had come before.

At the base of the cathedral, a drone was hit by laser fire and spiraled to the ground. When it hit, there was silence, even as one figure crawled out of the tangled heap of metal. No demons came for the magical girl. They flew over her, spiraling towards the figure of light on top of the cathedral, only to be cut down, one after another.

The Servant leaped down from the cathedral, grief cubes in hand, and rushed towards the girl on the ground. It was almost painful for the snake to watch her do this. Could she not taste the blood of the fallen when it already permeated the entire planet? Did death not reveal itself before her eyes when she looked?

The Servant reached out with the grief cubes, only to watch as the girl's soul gem plunged deeper into blackness, as the girl refused what grief cubes were offered—it was a waste. The snake knew it. It was a waste to try and stop what was coming. It had known it all along, ever since the beginning, until the end, even when the others had turned against him, said that it had betrayed them…

How could the snake be a traitor, when all along, it was what the Incubators were fighting?

"They're holding magical girls on a bridge seven kilometers north of here," the girl said. "You have to save them."

Light began to descend from the sky.

"I will," the Servant said, gripping the girl's hands. "I promise."

 _Now,_ at last, the Servant could see death. She backed up, fearful of the cold grip that took the girl before her. She didn't know who the girl was, her name, where she came from, or what her hopes had been. She knew only the girl's death, one corpse tucked neatly in the corner of a city, one more autumn leaf passing in the wind.

And now the theater began in earnest. One bolt of pink light split the clouds, racing towards the ground. The dying girl's eyes widened, first in surprise and then in the very specific ecstasy that only religion provided. She would be a martyr after all.

There was a brief, solemn ceremony, and then the deed was done and the girl died.

With a flash of light, only seen by the serpent, the Goddess straightened up, growing taller as she did so. When she stood upright, she was clothed in white, and her eyes glowed with golden light. The serpent slithered down the side of the building to meet her.

"Very easy to get detached, isn't it?"

The Goddess turned to address the serpent. "I would think you'd have some sense of decorum. This is your mess, after all, and it seems like bad form to make jokes over what's your fault."

"I don't care. Fault or no fault, what will happen already happened and what happened will happen again. You thought I cared? Be serious."

Tiny wrinkles, barely perceptible, appeared on the Goddess' face. It was rare that the serpent could get this sort of reaction out of anyone—well, she was really the only person it could get any sort of reaction from. The serpent had two choices: a legion of uncaring faces, and the Goddess, who probably hated it.

It would immerse itself in the hate for all eternity.

"What right do you even have to be offended? This was my domain. It's still my domain. You think you can just waltz in and change what has and must be? If you hold their hand when they cross over, do you think that I will be any kinder waiting on the other side? I said that it'd be easy to get detached, but that's clearly not the case. You're still only human."

Madoka smiled. "You're afraid."

"What?"

"You said, 'Only human.'"

The serpent paused. "A poor choice of words, but let's not kid ourselves, if _I_ wanted to keep track of every discursive misstep on your part, we'd be here all day. Eternity, maybe. And who would want to spend all that time tracing the imperfections of an immortal?"

The Goddess shook her head and turned away from the serpent. "I'm staying on this planet."

"For how long?"

"Forever."

The serpent laughed. "Fair enough."

-x-

It was only when she was halfway to the bridge that Diana realized—demons didn't take prisoners. They just killed everything they saw. Why would they be taking prisoners this time? Surely the Inquisitional girl couldn't have been lying to her. There was the possibility that she had simply mistaken what she had seen, but all the same, Diana flew on faster through the night.

Once again, the archdemon was nowhere to be seen. Diana had figured it out. The demons came first, in droves, completely willing to die by the thousands, as they slowly wore down the city's defenses.

(If they truly were not afraid to die, then that made sense, because they were hardly alive in the first place. But Diana still did not believe it.)

After the defenders had been worn out, after every single grief cube had been exhausted, after the archdemon and the despair it represented already owned the city, then it would swoop in and reap its harvest. And there and then, Diana would make her final stand. She would fight the archdemon for a third time, and this time she would lose for good, but maybe, maybe in her death she could save some lives from destruction. Maybe as darkness covered her in genuine death, she would discover something hidden in the folds of the Reaper's cloak. She would find meaning—a slip of paper saying, _you were alive_ —and everything would be okay.

They were losing the battle. Even with May's fresh reinforcements, the demons were pushing the magical girls back. The demons never tired, and they never wanted for grief cubes. They only hungered for something more to consume, something more to destroy, impassively circling the skies over a dying species and a dying civilization. Diana passed over the burning wreckage of two drones. She could not see any corpses. Tiny flashes of light dotted the night sky as battle continued in orbit above. Yoshio had said that the best-case scenario would be arrival by the morning, but it would be many long hours until then, and Diana knew that even if they held out, only a lucky few would survive.

In the distance, a black serpent cutting through the city reflected the night sky above. Even as the city around it burned, the river remained calm, its waters rhythmically lapping its shores. If there were anywhere she could hide, Diana realized, it would be there, under the waters. She could let the serpent wrap around her and shelter her. It was safer in the water of the womb than it was in the desert of the world. Being born was a curse.

The bridge had two layers. The surface of the bridge swarmed with demons. Diana aimed an arrow at the sky and released it, watching as it burst into a blue flare overhead. It was a signal indicating where she was. The bridge was a fair bit behind current demon battle lines, but maybe, with Diana's push forwards, they could reclaim some ground, buy some time, before the horde surged forwards once more.

Diana dove down towards the demons. They scattered from the bridge, and Diana did not bother loosing arrows after them. It would be a waste of magic. A few demons remained to challenge her, bolder and prouder than the rest. They died at her feet, bubbling away into miasma, cursing her name. Diana was too numb to even take any satisfaction from their deaths.

Once the surface was clear, Diana moved down to the bottom layer of the bridge. This layer, shielded from moonlight, was cast in shadow, and Diana could barely make out what was happening. She tracked where the demon lasers came from and shot in those directions, watching as figures fell over. Then, she summoned a ball of light in her hands and tossed it into the air, illuminating the bridge. Her eyes widened, and suddenly Diana found herself suppressing the urge to scream or vomit.

They had been captured to be tortured. Diana found herself rooted to the spot for a moment, as colors—just like the ones she used for paints—overwhelmed her mind, black and red and yellow. It looked like the inside of a demon battleship, and human flesh was draped everywhere, like a butcher's shop.

Then the cries and moans hit Diana's ears, and she realized that some were still alive. She was only one person—she was a _vanguard_ , not a rescue team—but she rushed forwards, freeing magical girls, and not knowing what to do with them. Diana's light shone on a familiar figure in the distance. Panic seized Diana's heart as she spread her wings and flew over.

"Akira!"

Akira's eyes were fixed straight forwards, even as Diana approached her. "Akira!" Diana shouted again, before turning around to see what she was looking at. She saw another familiar face staring back at her. Before she could even go towards that face, Akira stopped her.

"He's dead."

Death had been unfair to Alexander. There was no pride or dignity in his death—a corpse, bloodied and mangled, with a ruined face and broken limbs, dangling before Diana. But surely, surely there was some meaning in it all. At least Diana would know that he had died a proud man. He had died as a man who had loved his family and his people, and wasn't that—

"Doesn't it count for anything?" Diana whispered.

"I'm sorry," Akira said. "I—I couldn't do anything, they—"

Akira's voice broke. Diana turned around and felt the last sparks of hope inside her fade as she looked into Akira's defeated face. Her eyes were completely, utterly lifeless.

No—there was some hope left. "Come on," Diana said, reaching out a hand. "We need to get out of here."

Akira didn't move.

" _Please._ Akira, I can't let you die here too!" Diana shouted. The hand she extended towards Akira began to shake, and she made no attempt to stop it. " _Please!"_

Light flashed in the distance, and then, in a burst of blood and skin and fire, Diana's right hand was blown off her wrist.

Diana had only half a second to extend her wings, shielding both herself and Akira from the next laser. The archdemon landed across from them softly and without any grandeur. It was here; Diana's time was up; now they were finished, in the same way Diana turned over the last page of a book and set it aside.

The archdemon waved a hand, and then the structural supports of the bridge creaked and shattered. Suddenly, Diana was falling, and she could save herself, and she could save Akira, but she did not know about the rest. She might have taken one or two hands and tossed them out to safety, before the metal and concrete came crashing down on everything, into the water, which now foamed with anger and fury.

She felt herself sinking, before she grabbed Akira and burst out of the waters. She had to get to the shore. Carrying Akira in the one arm that wasn't mutilated, she sped away from the archdemon, weaving left and right as lasers zoomed over her shoulders. She was almost at the shore when a laser struck her in the back, launching her and Akira forwards. They landed with a violent crash on the rocky shore. Akira was flung from her arm.

Diana struggled to stand and regain her senses. Next to her, she could see Akira doing the same. Slowly, Diana began crawling towards her, willing her legs to move, willing her knees to straighten. "Akira," she called out. "Akira!"

Akira was bent over on her knees. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Akira said. "I couldn't do anything."

A vivid, clear image flashed through Diana's mind. It filled her with fire and lightning, it painted color back onto her face. She remembered Akira's face, full of hope and life. She remembered Akira's words— _I believe in you._ She remembered that once, she had not feared. There was something so precious and wondrous in this world that Diana would go to any lengths to recapture it.

Diana stood.

"Listen," she said, limping over to Akira. "We're going to live. I can't be fucking bothered to consider a world where we both don't live, okay? Don't waste my stupid time; I'm too tired already. Both of us are going to live."

Akira looked up at her. She saw the fear and exhaustion in Diana's eyes; she saw how her back was bent, and her knees unsteady, and her costume torn and dirtied. She saw how Diana's soul gem had darkness inside it.

"You believed in me," Diana said, "in my darkest moments. And I believe in you. Please, _please,_ don't give up on me. I love you, more than anything, more than I love life, more than I fear death."

Akira's face shook and then broke. She began sobbing. Above her, a Reaper drone descended. A magical girl leapt out and sped towards them.

"Diana!" May shouted, landing beside her. "We need to get you out of here. That demon is coming."

"No. I stay," Diana said. "I have to stay."

May's face pinched in pain, and then she nodded. "I-I understand."

"Take Akira and leave. Get as far away as possible."

"Yes."

"Thank you for everything."

"Y-yes."

Diana knelt down and grabbed Akira's hand. "Do you still…do you still believe in me?"

Through her tears, Akira forced out one word: "Yes."

Diana leaned forwards and kissed her—a second, an instant lost immediately in time. Then, she turned away as Akira and Diana went back into the drone and flew away. Diana watched the drone ascend, back into the ruined city, away from her. She had sent Akira away again.

_Yield, Servant._

Diana turned around to face the voice. The archdemon advanced up the riverbank slowly and deliberately, its feet ghosting over the muddied earth. Light grew behind the archdemon's head until it formed a blinding halo. There were no more drones streaking across the night sky; there were no more flares. Diana couldn't hear any plasma cannons being fired. She couldn't see any brightly colored dots against the night sky. Had they stopped fighting, or were they all dead? Either way, the battle was over.

_Your spirit's broken. You've lost._

She had told Maria D'Arco—they needed to hold the line, no matter what the cost. No matter how many of the brave and the faithful died, they needed to hold the line. No matter how badly bloodied humanity became, they needed to hold the line. Otherwise they would all be cowards. And they had—they had fought bravely, hadn't they?

_You can rest now, Servant. You don't have to struggle. You don't have to fear anymore. There's a reward waiting us all at the end of our journey, and you're about to be granted that reward. Don't you want peace?_

What about ignominious defeat? What then? The last stand at Rackba still had to be noble. They would still say of the irreplaceable fallen, the officers who had chosen to stay behind—they died on their feet.

Diana remembered the flesh strewn across the bridge and shook.

_There isn't any point in fighting on. I don't want to kill you while you're struggling. I'm an emissary of Hashal, after all. Hashal will welcome you gently and kindly. There's no reason for me to be harsh about it._

There was still that drone with May and Akira on it. There were still some magical girls alive in this city somewhere. _She_ was still alive. And in orbit, Yoshio's fleet still did battle. The line was still there behind her, no matter how much she wanted to believe that it had raced in front of her long ago. She could choose to run once but she would have to choose to keep fighting forever, and she still hadn't chosen to run.

"Fuck, don't you think I tried to convince myself of that?" Diana said. " _Komm, süßer Tod—_ all that horseshit? It's too easy. No matter how much I try telling myself that there's nothing left to fight for, I find something. You haven't won yet. You won't win until you've killed me, because fuck it all, I will not surrender the will to fight."

Diana spread her wings and dodged out to the side just as the demon fired at her. The shot took off the rest of her right arm, but it missed her soul gem. Then, Diana sped towards the archdemon, and this time it was she who grabbed the demon by the robes and lifted it up into the air.

_You can't even draw your bow._

The river exploded as Diana spiked the archdemon down into the waters. Foam and spray circled the air. Diana had been caught in a typhoon once, but in her boat, she had known how to survive the storm. She understood the waters. They were destruction by inches, unfathomable, impossible to encompass, defying any boundary—beautiful.

Water from the river was lifted high into the air, drawn towards the stump of Diana's arm. It began to glow and take the rough shape of a new limb. For one insane instant, Diana felt invincible. The archdemon had blown half her head off, it had killed her friends, it had killed half the magical girls on this planet. It had tormented her in her dreams, it had taunted her with her words, it would not die and it would not relent. But even now, when it had tried to take her bow from her, when it had tried to make her unable to fight, it could not stop her. Diana Markos looked at her glowing arm, saw her face reflected in it, and remembered that the Goddess watched over her.

The archdemon rose from the river, water pouring from its form. _You continue to defy your destiny._

"No," Diana said. " _This_ is our destiny. Humanity was hurled kicking and screaming into an uncaring, brutal world, filled with monsters like you. And for the millennia we've been here, it's been our destiny to fight the ugly, awful fight. It is our destiny to struggle."

_Not this time. You can kill every single demon on this planet and in orbit, but so long as I draw breath, not a single human will escape this system alive. No miracles will save you._

Then, both the archdemon and the Servant turned their heads upwards. At first, Diana thought that it was dawn. And then, as demon battleships came crashing down from the heavens, fire pouring from their sides, chased by human ships, Diana realized—Yoshio had broken through, hours before he had promised, and suddenly everything changed. The light that Diana had mistaken for the sun shone across the sky again, and the Winepress cannon obliterated another demon battleship. Hierocracy cruisers poured out of the sky. Diana couldn't see it, but she knew that they were unloading salvo after salvo of planetary siege missiles onto demon positions. What she could see was the aftermath—flashes of light, bursting one after another after another, like fireworks. As the demons were blasted apart, the miasma cleared from the city, and telepathic channels were restored. Immediately, destroyers began moving to evacuate the city's survivors.

There was one thing between the Hierocracy and safety, standing before Diana right now. She notched an arrow. Now, she believed completely in salvation.

The earth shook as Diana and the archdemon clashed. Diana blocked out all telepathic communications, calling for a retreat, directing orders for her to evacuate. The archdemon knew that this was its only chance at preventing the humans from escaping. She had to deny the archdemon that chance. She had to chase it out of the city.

They sped along the surface of the river, weaving around each other, constantly looking for a weakness to exploit. Diana could feel the light of her soul gem pulse. She wasn't anywhere near capable of unleashing the sort of battleship-destroying firepower that she could at full capacity, but she could put up a fight. She could feel that the archdemon was still weakened from its earlier injuries. It had tried to deliver a swift killing blow, and instead had to contend with a drawn-out melee.

Suddenly, Diana felt a familiar feeling against her face, and remembered the obvious—all rivers led to an ocean. The vast expanse of water welcomed her with open arms. She could see, on its face, every smiling mother who welcomed their war-weary daughters back from war. She could taste the salt in the air, a humble flavor, pungent and homely.

There in that ocean, Diana saw peace, the respite from war, and death, the release from life. It beckoned her still, drawing her nearer, yet Diana could still feel the cold grasp of fear on her heart, so she made a compromise. She would enter the grand unknown gripping as tightly onto the right to life as she could.

Diana opened up communications with Yoshio. _Yoshio, listen carefully._

_Retreat! This is an order!_

_The demon that I am fighting can bring down this entire fleet. It will kill everyone if it is not stopped. It_ needs _to be stopped. If I let off it for even a second, it'll be gone and you'll be doomed. That's your briefing. You have my coordinates. You know what to do. Fire on my mark. Until then, shut up and let me concentrate._

 _You_ will not _martyr yourself!_

_Yoshio, please._

There was silence.

Regret washed over Diana, which was to be expected. She had always known that she would never live a life so full that she could die perfectly content. But now, Diana broke a promise. She had committed the old idiot's mistake of making a promise she couldn't keep. But it was okay—it was okay—she just hadn't been smart enough or lucky enough.

Diana didn't want to die.

The demon had separated itself from her and was bombarding her from above with lasers. Diana notched an arrow, dodged one laser and then sped upwards. She dodged another, and then she was halfway to the demon. The final laser came too quickly for her to avoid, and it streaked across her back, severing her wings of light from her body. Diana felt gravity take hold of her.

Her inertia carried her to the demon, and when she felt the tip of her arrow press against the underside of the archdemon's flesh— _it was surprisingly soft; the demon was only mortal_ —Diana let loose. The archdemon was launched further upwards, and then Diana began to fall.

She remembered ignoring a transmission from her father yelling at her to come home, as she had navigated a storm in her boat. She knew what she was doing. She remembered losing a painting, just flat-out forgetting where it was, and spending an entire day looking for it. She remembered how overjoyed she was when she found it, like she had lost part of her mind, and then the painting made her whole and sane again. She remembered teaching her brother how to sketch, one hot and static summer afternoon with bugs buzzing around her ears and boredom coiled in her heart.

She remembered—red and white, gold, gray, orange—

Diana met the ocean, and in her mind, she whispered, _now._ In orbit, the _Maelstrom's_ Winepress cannon finished its charging sequence and fired.

She could see only the outline of the archdemon's form as it was utterly obliterated, and then the light and the water took her.

-x-

The serpent slithered alongside the body of a girl, washed ashore on a ruined planet. It looked with black, imperturbable eyes upon the girl's form, noted the faint light that yet glowed at the girl's chest, and then slithered away.

There were still miles and miles to go, crawling under baking sun, trembling under freezing moon, and the serpent whispered, "Not yet."

-x-

_I'm still alive._

Diana had woken up behind a metal coffin, with nanobots crawling over her skin, and her soul gem trapped behind a lattice of grief cubes. It was the best medical technology the Hierocracy could provide to accelerate the regeneration process. They knew that the Winepress cannon had pulverized her physical form. The body that had been found washed up on the shore had all the tell-tale biological signs of magical creation.

 _I cheated death,_ Diana thought, but not without some irony. She knew that no such thing could be done.

Her legs dangled in the open air of the _Maelstrom's_ docking bay. Drones and transport ships and even destroyers streamed in and out of the dreadnought's massive hold. They were still in low atmosphere over Rackba, completing evacuations from the city. Diana looked down at the planet, its features now barely distinguishable from the air, where she had somehow managed to live. Maybe the regeneration had to do with her wish? If she could not die, then she had nothing to fear. It was a fanciful, vain thought.

Everybody on the ship was busy. They were busy trying to heal the wounded with the limited supplies of grief cubes that remained, busy trying to complete evacuations of the planet, busy trying to regroup the Armada forces after the orbital battle, and busy trying to grieve the dead. Several other planets held by heretics had erupted in a flurry of demonic activity over the past few days, just as Rackba had. At the same time, demon fleets from interstellar space were closing in. Another attack, this time in space, was bound to happen. The demons were going to take their revenge, and the Fleet of Mercy was still far away.

"Diana."

Christine's normally pristine red-and-gold armor was pockmarked and blackened. Her expression was familiar, because Diana had seen it in the eyes of every magical girl on Rackba, and it was probably on her own face as well. Christine was tired. There had been a fierce battle in orbit. Even with boarders taking out as many ships as possible, and even with the dreadnought's Winepress hammering away at demon positions, the demons had superior numbers and comparable firepower. It had been a miracle that Yoshio had broken through so early at all.

"You're still alive," Diana said, "which is good."

Christine nodded.

"I'm still alive," Diana continued, "which is strange."

"Why is that? We won. _You_ won, Diana."

"I didn't win anything."

Christine shook her head. "You should see Yoshio. He's furious, of course, that you were willing to sacrifice yourself like that, but without that sacrifice he knows that his fleet would have been destroyed by that demon. You were a hero."

Diana felt herself shiver. "I'm no hero."

She remembered the body of a Lyudian woman, crumpled on the floor, her mouth hanging slightly open and her eyes wide and glassy. In the center of her chest the flesh was burnt and twisted, and blood poured from her wounds onto the floor, soaking into her clothing, running through the cracks. The woman's daughter stared at her and screamed, and Diana just wanted to join her.

"I'm no hero," she repeated.

"Diana?" Christine placed an armored hand on Diana's shoulder. "What happened?"

Diana couldn't bring herself to speak. She was safe now, in the belly of the Hierocracy's beast, surrounded by steel and holy fire. Those parts of her that were cut off and left bleeding on the planet behind them would stay there forever. She couldn't speak of what had been done there. She could only suffer to bear the wounded remains of her soul.

"There have been new magical girl recruits from the refugees. One of them mentioned you to me," Christine said.

Diana started in confusion. " _Rebecca?"_

"A new Armada magical girl."

"Her brother died down there."

Christine shrugged. "To avenge and remember are strong motivators. Almost as strong as faith and hope."

It didn't make sense. Rebecca had hated the Hierocracy and the Goddess. But then, Diana remembered the sight of Alexander's mangled body. She kept telling herself that he had died with dignity. If she were in Rebecca's place, Diana supposed that she would want to die with dignity too. She would meet her god with something behind her, with her life carrying some weight. She could point to the oath she swore to the Goddess and the soul gem in her hands as proof that she had lived, that she was worthy of death. "I guess it adds up," Diana said.

"We need the recruits," Christine said. "We don't have enough grief cubes to sustain all the blackened soul gems on this ship. Eventually we'll start taking losses."

Diana's heart skipped a beat. She hadn't seen Akira at all on the ship. Hadn't her soul gem been depleted? Diana leapt to her feet and grabbed Christine. "Have you seen Akira?"

"Akira? No. Diana, this is one dreadnought in a massive fleet. We can't look everywhere."

_Yoshio! Are you there?_

Yoshio's telepathic voice was tense and constrained. Christine was right; he was angry. _Yes. What is it?_

_Check databases. Have any grief cube resources been allocated to Akira Tanaka?_

_No, they haven't. Why do you ask?_

Diana didn't reply. Instead, she called out again, _Akira!_

There was no answer. Diana turned to Christine. "She's down there."

"Diana, that's impossible," Christine said. "We're running low on grief cubes. It makes sense that some people wouldn't be treated yet."

Panic was filling Diana. "If you had seen her on Rackba, you would've known—she was nearing the last reserves of her soul gem. Fuck! Why didn't I check? I _saw_ her! She looked dead. If she were in this fleet, she would've been one of the first to get grief cubes. Christine, I have to go look for her."

"You're not going down there."

"If anybody asks, lie."

Christine's sword appeared in her hands in an instant. Without hesitation, Christine raised it towards Diana. "You're _not_ going down there. I won't let you die a pointless death, Diana."

"I killed the demons down there once. I can do it again. Christine, please. I don't want to fight you, and I know you won't actually fight me. So drop the bullshit and let me through. I need to find her. If I lose her, it—I can't let that happen."

Christine's sword wavered. "You and she…?"

"Let me go, Christine."

Slowly, Christine lowered her sword. "I do this because I believe in you."

"I know that this might be an enormous mistake, but that's something I have to accept. I might be betraying your belief, but I've done that enough times already that I don't think it matters anymore."

Christine stepped forwards and wrapped Diana in a hug. "We can't be _mahou shoujo_ if we don't occasionally express irrational emotion. Come back alive."

"Thank you," Diana said, her voice muffled against Christine's armor. Then, she pulled away, and stepped into the open air. Spreading her wings, she flew down to the planet. The shadow of the _Maelstrom_ stretched across Rackba's surface, a dark scar across burning cities and fields stained with blood. Diana knew that Akira was down there. If her connection to the Goddess meant anything, if she was something more than a regular human being, like what was said in all the scripture, like what was believed by all the Hierocracy, then she could know this. It was the same deep, certain feeling of knowing that her destiny had been to stand and fight. For all her life Diana had stumbled and crawled in the blackness of a cave, fearing whatever lay ahead, and now the earth shook and the cave crumbled; the light flooded in.

Now she _knew._ The planet had taught her what death was.

With her mind, Diana shouted, _Akira!_ There was no answer. The remnants of the demons floated aimlessly, scattered across the surface of the planet. Yoshio's fleet had blasted away their army, but no laser cannon could bring the dead back to life. Wherever there had been life on Rackba, now there were only a handful of wandering demons waiting to die.

Diana spotted, once again, the black serpent cutting through the city. The sky was beginning to lighten as Rackba turned to face the sun, orange and bloated, hanging in the distance. As she flew closer to the city, Diana could see individual corpses lying on the ground. They had fallen from the tree of life, and gently, softly, they had landed to rest.

 _Goddess, please,_ Diana thought. She would give up anything, toss it into a fire and watch it ascend to the heavens in inky smoke, like the barbarian pagans, if only the Goddess would accept the offering. If the Goddess were truly an emissary of hope, then she would grant Diana's wish. Right now her life was dangling on a thread made of hope and desperation, and—and—

Akira was kneeling by the riverbank where Diana had last seen her, as if no time had passed from then and now. Diana swooped down from the sky and ran towards her. When she reached her, she grabbed Akira by the shoulders and shook her. "What are you doing?!" she shouted. "We have to go back. Come on!"

"No," Akira said. "I am not going back."

Akira stretched her hand out, and in that black rock she held was all of Diana's weakness and all of her fear.

Akira gave a weak, broken smile. "You see? There was never any question for me. I'm not strong like you or the others. I was always weak. That's why you had to send me away. Because I live in a world of dreams, and I can't handle the real world."

Diana turned around, summoned her bow, and shot the first demon she saw. The grief cube dissolved. She shot another, and another, and another, watching as the cubes faded away, running into nothingness between her fingers. Diana screamed.

" _Why?"_ she asked, holding Akira.

"I know we don't have enough grief cubes," Akira said. "I didn't want any to be wasted on me."

 _"Wasted?"_ Diana repeated. "I would give my life for you! Humanity can _burn!_ The Goddess can fall out of the sky for all I care! What have either of them ever done for us? What have they done for _you?_ You were _everything!_ "

Akira began to shake, and then tears started pouring down her face. "I'm sorry, Diana. I couldn't…I couldn't do anything when they killed Alexander in front of me. I'm useless. Why do I deserve to live?"

Diana watched in horror as the darkness inside Akira's soul gem grew. Slowly, she drew Akira's trembling body closer to her own. "I love you. Isn't that good enough?"

Streaks of pink were beginning to penetrate the horizon. Diana said, "I love you, and I wanted to keep you safe, but I was an idiot. If I knew, I'd have never…never made you die alone. I would've begged for you to stay by my side forever. If you're not alone, that makes it worth living. Doesn't it?"

Through her tears, Akira managed to choke out, "I don't know. I can't keep living, but I don't want to die. I don't want to be left alone."

"No," Diana said, "you're not alone. I'll be with you."

The realization that Akira was going to die settled neatly in Diana's mind. There was nothing she could do to stop it, nothing, will all her power and all her strength. The future lay ahead of her, a wasteland drained of color, leaving behind only howling wind and swirling sand. What remained for those who were left behind, alone? For Diana, she stood at the present watching as that wasteland barreled towards her, ready to sweep her into it.

Diana was filled with a sudden urge to defy the wasteland. "I'll be with you forever," she said. "Even death—even death—it won't stop us from being together. Get it? We'll die, but we'll be immortal."

Akira grasped Diana's hand and squeezed. The hand was familiar. Diana had felt it when she had woken up after the archdemon's attack. She remembered its shape, its texture, and its warmth. That hand and the memories she had of it were what still tied her to the world, to another human being. The blue rock on her chest wasn't the only thing tying her to life. The hand did so as well. All along, what had she been afraid of? Had she been afraid that the molecules that made up her body would organize themselves in such a way so to make a dead body instead of a living one? Had she been afraid that the rock that was her soul would shatter and disappear?

"Forever," Akira said. "That's a promise?"

"Yeah, it is. By your side, forever."

"All right," Akira said. She smiled, even as the last bits of light in her soul gem were extinguished. "I was so afraid of that dream, where I died alone. But…"

Diana shook her head. "I couldn't let that happen. When I saw you on the bridge, I was so afraid, because—because I thought, what if she's dead? Because then, I'd have failed you. But…but like this, at least—at least you won't be alone. I don't care if another archdemon comes, I'll be with you until—"

Diana couldn't say the words, but Akira nodded, absolving her. The tears on Akira's face were beginning to dry. "Thank you."

"I love you so much," Diana said. "Don't you realize? I would have never left you. You were warmth and light, I—I couldn't leave you. You were never alone."

Akira didn't answer. There was no sound. There was no light. Akira's body faded away.

What had she been afraid of? Diana knew the answer. She had been afraid of this. Now Akira was dead, and the wasteland was all around her.

She felt the tears burst through her face and stream down her cheeks. There was no hand, even if it was cold and lifeless, for her to hold. And then, Diana looked down and saw the she held a lock of black hair.

She looked up into the sky as the sun rose, and the planet turned. She thought that she might see wings of light descending down from the heavens, but there was nothing, only a blank sky, uncaring and indifferent, only a distant sun, harsh and unforgiving. There was nothing, nothing in the wasteland, and Diana realized that that was what she should have put in the mosaic—nothing. She should have put emptiness. She should have made a world where the only thing that mattered was the other hand.

Diana kneeled down in the dirt and sobbed.

-x-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have always aspired to be a healing-type author.
> 
> Really, really sorry for the huge delay in this chapter coming out. I can safely say at this point that we are nearing the final chapters of the story. The end is in sight! We are also done with rackba, which is, by the way, an anagram of Ackbar, because the planet is a trap. I'm a comedic genius.
> 
> The next chapter is probably going to come out some time in early December at best or early January at worst. In terms of writing, this year I'm sort of hampered by the whole apply to university dealie. Also some other meaningless stuff. And other writing projects that don't get posted here.
> 
> Oh, by the way, last seen tethered is probably going to be finished after this story is over. The two stories have…sort of some thematic relation? But not much. Not reading it is not a huge loss.
> 
> If you liked this chapter, or if you're a new reader who's finished the 100k+ words I've written so far, please leave a review! Or if like you have any criticism. or if you really really hated it you can still, like, vent your anger. I'd appreciate anything!


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